Show me the Love

I often feel that more than anything people want to love and be loved. I can't think of a single person who has said to me, "Jessi, I just don't want to be loved" or "I don't want people to like me." It's just not part of our nature. We want to feel cared about, loved for, and appreciated. It's also natural that we show those things to other people in return. I think often we are even afraid of not being loved...or being alone in the world. It doesn't matter how much someone has, if they don't feel loved they will feel worthless. Recently, I read the book "The Love Languages of God" By Gary Chapman, the same author who wrote "The Five Love Languages." I would recommend the book to anyone. In his book "The Love Languages of God" Gary Chapman talks about how we all give and receive love in different ways. We feel the most loved when we are spoken to in our own love language. That seems natural, right? Well, he continues on to say that God knows our love language and that he speaks to us most clearly through our own love language. I enjoyed his book and felt that it was very insightful, but I didn't feel like it really impacted my life. At least not right away. It wasn't until this week that something from his book really sank in. In his book he explains that there are five main ways people give and receive love: through gifts, physical touch, quality time, acts of service and words of affirmation. One of the five love languages speaks to you most deeply, but it is different from person to person. For me I'm definitely quality time. Anyways, I was praying on my steps outside earlier this week, and I started thinking about the verse in Jeremiah where God is talking to Israel and in Jeremiah 31:3b He says "...I have loved you with an everlasting love;.." I love that! We are loved with an everlasting love. All the way to my core I believe that. I started thinking about that...why was it that I never question God's love for me? I question people's love for me often enough. Something from Mr. Chapman's book came back to me, God speaks to us in our love language. I feel most loved when someone spends time with me. Well, God is omnipresent, He is always there. I never question if God loves me because He is always there to spend time with me. I don't have to call Him to decide where we are going to meet up, or when. He never calls me to cancel an appointment. He wants to spend time with me. He is always available. He is able to show me a love that no one in the world will ever be able to show me. That is why God's love is so much stronger than a human love. It surpasses time, depth, height, length, and width. There is nowhere that God's love cannot reach. What a comfort! If quality time is not your love language, don't lose heart, God speaks all the love languages fluently! What a great God we serve.

The Tongue Stage

I'm sure anyone who has kids or has worked with kids a lot can identify the tongue stage. This is the stage where kids concentrate so hard that their tongue comes just outside of there mouth and usually scoots over to the side. Often times the mouth hang open slightly as they work. Oh, and "The tongue stage" is definitely the technical term. Anyhow, my preschoolers are 100% at this stage right now. I love to come up with task that cause their tongues to come out because I think that it's so cute. As I pull a pair of scissors out for them to practice cutting, I'm over come with giddy anticipation. Their fingers slip through the finger holes and automatically their tongues stick out. It only becomes more dramatic as they try to cut on a straight line. They are so cute and I feel privileged to get to work with them.

School makes me tired!

We are well into our 3rd week of school at Ebenezer Academy. All is going well, I'm starting to work through the adjustment of having new kids in the class. I have my preschool class in the mornings from 8:20-12:00 just like last year. I currently have 3 students, Jennifer (4,) Cristian (3,) and Marlon (3.) They are a delight. In the afternoons I have an assortment of class, P.E., home ec., English as a second language, and reading time with the kindergarten. Today my last class was reading, after which I had a planning time. As I was reading today one of my students got droopy eyed and fell asleep. He leaned his head on my shoulder and took a little nap. As time went on I started to feel a little sleepy too. I stayed past time to read, while the kindergarten teacher was working with a student one on one. Enmanuel started looking at books and I got cozy with Junior curled up next to me. Before I knew it I had dozed off. Apparently, the other teachers were laughing at me, and took a picture. I woke up to Junior poking me asking why I didn't read to him. I explained that he had slept through the stories...he didn't believe me and wanted me to read to him. I didn't get much planning done this afternoon, but I read some pretty awesome books and got a little nap time.