What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. - Eleanor Powell
I blogged previously on the disparity between my time in St. Louis for Urbana and my experience on the first day back to school (which wasn’t more than three days after that).
I asked God how he wanted me to be a witness within my cohort. I should explain, a “cohort” within the Faculty of Education is just a district or a program based on a specific focus or committed to a specific issue/issues. My cohort is the Inner City Option which, according to my school website, is committed to exploring issues of equity and social justice, and to integrating research-based theory and practice in order to prepare teachers not only for teaching students in low-income, urban schools, but also for becoming advocates of change for students traditionally underserved by the system.
There are about 67 of us teacher candidates, each one of us empassioned by equity and social justice issues. We are all considerably different, some of us coming from growing up nearly impoverished, others growing up in the suburbs in families that are moderately well-to-do. Some of us have experienced racism first hand, and others have merely read about it in articles, dissertations and watched it on the television. As you can imagine, this confrontation leads to many bristly conversations. It’s a very tense space at times. Anyway, in the interest of not repeating myself from my previous blog about my first day back, I’ll go on to how God spoke to me.
As I was praying during my Quiet Time with Him, I felt convicted to start a small group in my cohort. I was confused and nervous about the thought. I thought seriously God? Are you sure? and then I thought, Joyce, stop being silly. Of course He’s sure. He knows far more than your puny brain could ever fathom. So with that I brought up starting a small group with a friend from the cohort whom I knew would be interested. He thought it would be a good idea and so we talked to a couple of other people who we thought might be Christians and I was shocked when one of them said in genuine curiousity ”Yea! I was wondering why it took us this long to get a small group going.” Another shocker came when my friend (a non-believer) asked, as she overheard our conversation, if she could observe. Unanimously we said “of course!” exchanging big smiles all around. As cheesy as it sounds, it was such a beautiful moment finally feeling safe in that seemingly faith-intolerant place.
It just goes to show that even though I thought I had a clear perspective of that ‘neighbourhood’, it shows that God’s intentions are more often than not explicitly revealed to you. He may be working under the surface level and you simply must obey in order to further discover His ‘bigger picture’.
