Big Picture

He was 32, teacher’s certificate, actually felt that teaching was his calling. He had worked for me briefly while in college, married, and his wife had a very good job in the banking business. The only place he could find employment was an hour's drive from his home. An hour's drive to work and an hour's drive from work. He described the impossible situation, teaching sixth graders, undisciplined, indifferent, arrogant, nasty, rude, unconcerned about themselves or their world. He said, “I am at the end of the road, totally discouraged. I see no future for the children I am trying to teach nor for the public school profession. It is bad enough just getting there, reckless drivers, expensive gas, wear and tear on my car. We cannot afford to move closer because my wife has a much better job than me, and we like our home but, our life has become a madhouse, the stress of our lives. I am about ready to end it all”.

I reminded him that I did not want to hear any foolish talk, that too many much younger people take the suicide route, not realizing the consequences of their actions.

Our salvation is an internal transaction. When the Holy Spirit of God lives in your life, although you have free will, God is acting through you, ever available to handle any situation. Life is not about us, but what God expects of us.

The greatest thought in the world, the greatest thought in the mind of a human being, the very Spirit of God living in me.

The big picture, only eternity will know the good you have accomplished in the lives of children. The daily task of transportation to and from the job can be turned into a rewarding experience. You can do nothing about the stupid people allowed to drive cars no more than you can do anything about stupid people allowed to have children. You cannot imagine how much I would like to drive a car again, in spite of the challenges on the highway... people talking on cell phones. Be thankful for this time alone in your car, with a CD player, a time of learning and thinking, listening to outstanding speakers, great music on your radio.

You may very well be the only stabilizing, challenging influence in many of these childrens lives. In the country community where I was raised, one woman had an influence on every child in that community. Ms. Ida owned a farm which her deceased husband had inherited from his family. A very prominent, land-owning family, her husband and his brother were the only two men in the area who had gone to college... both UNC-CH graduates. Her husband, lawyer, never practiced law because he committed slow suicide with a liquor bottle. She probably had a few hundred dollars a year income from rent of her farm but, every child in the community knew that when they went by her house, (and this was before television, video games, spending money for candy bars, even if there had been a place to buy such.) she would give them a tea cake. (small cookie-like homemade cake) When handing you the tea cake she would say, without fail, every time, “Jesus loves you.” That testimony affected more people than she would ever know.

One of my aunts, dietician at O'Berry Center (NC hospital for disabled, unwanted children) would drive to her home each lunch hour, to attend her disabled husband, crippled by an automobile accident. He was bedridden for many years before his death, alone, in the house, totally dependent on her. Her neighbors, her church, her family and friends, everyone knew of her devotion to her job and her husband. I am sure she and many others reached the place in life that they just wanted to quit the whole thing, that their promises after death would seem so enticing If they did not know the challenges of the big picture.

I was in East Berlin several times, compared to West Berlin, like black and white. East Berlin was the most dismal, depraved place you can imagine. Trying to escape the hell of communism, the wall was constructed to keep the oppressed East Germans inside. Some would escape through other countries such as Hungary. Erich Honecker, convinced communist, in spite of what he knew about the prosperity of the West, refused to take in the big picture. The wall fell, he died in South America, and East Germany became as prosperous as West Germany. With most things, time cures all. We are active as long as possible knowing that God designed lour lives. Evangelist Billy Graham has said, “After the activity, when the body has slowly worn out, it is good to spend time in prayer for those still in the battle”. Character determines destination but life is a journey not just a destination. It is the bumps in the road that causes me to believe that faith in God is 90% courage, the courage to keep on.