Musings on Life and Living

When I started doing my student teaching in Champaign in 2006, I started listening to the radio as I drove to my assignments in the morning. I bounced around from station to station, looking for a morning show that I enjoyed. I eventually settled on Mix 94.5 and discovered t he morning show hosted by Kevin Lambert and Sarah Addison. I have listened to their show almost religiously ever since. Kevin and Sarah kept me company as I drove the 35 miles to Paxton each morning during the Spring 2008 semester before I graduated. After graduating, I continued to listen to their morning show. I often keep my radio tuned to the station and I listen to the other radio personalities but, in all honesty, it has been Kevin and Sarah that have kept me on the station. I have caught up on news headlines, sports scores, celebrity gossip, weird news, stupid things people have done, local weather and traffic conditions, and random topics. I have enjoyed their easy banter, their obvious friendship, a...

For almost three years now, I have had the immense privilege of teaching the 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old Sunday School classes in my church. Due to people moving and other changes, our Primary President, asked me to switch to co-teaching the 6 and 7-year-olds' class. I openly admit that this was a very hard thing to be asked to do. I didn't want to do it. I have built such remarkable relationships with the budding young men and young women in my class and with their parents and I was worried about what would happen to my students who don't always deal well with change. All the way up until 10:30 this morning, half an hour before church started, I was angry at the change, angry that I was being asked to leave these children in the hands of another set of teachers when I had just a handful of weeks left before the year was up. Then something remarkable happened. Our choir was rehearsing for our performance of "Prayer of Thanksgiving" (also known as "We Gather T...