Kristen Blog

I am a firm believer in acceptance. I am all about diversity.  So much so, because I am so diverse within myself.  My moods often change from one minute to the next!  I mean, I've never been really big on conformity.  I love change...as long as I am in charge of it.  😁  I am drawn to unique, different, diverse.  It's part of why I love my job.  I am all over the place, stretched out over 3 counties and 20 schools.  I see different people every single day, and often times I am in multiple different places within one day.  Never too long in one spot (I was not good with the whole classroom gig, same place every day 8 to 4.  That was way too rigid for me.) I just love diversity.  And I love people.  I mean...collectively, I hate them.  But individually, I just love ALL people, and I want to give them a GREAT BIG HUG!  I love all people...except...the ones who are in front of me, behind me or beside me in my car...

It's been a long week.  Back in full throttle mode, long hours and lots of people having difficulty transitioning back from break.  I am a de-escalator.  I specialize in getting people who don't want to...to participate.  I am not always successful.  Either way, it is a major energy drain.  I have to channel all of my resources to filling up during times off, so that I can put everything I've got into both of my jobs, because both of them are challenging in their own ways. However, I'm not so sure I've had it right all along.  I may just be thriving with all of this opportunity to deal with huge amounts and varieties of people all day long.  One day at home with my four kids proves that being home bound alone with them can be just as challenging and draining (if not more) than working my full-time job and internship together every day.  At least I am teaching, encouraging and de-escalating different people...people who might actually list...

I've been thinking and reading and hearing a lot about instant gratification, our inability to delay it, and, for that matter, our natural instinct to run from any kind of pain, discomfort, or displeasure.  It makes sense, naturally, to go after exactly what we want and take it. It makes sense, naturally, to avoid pain at all cost.  That is the pure, raw instinct of the flesh.  The problem is, that tendency, to instantly quench all desire immediately, to instantly fight off all kinds of discomfort and displeasure, is a short-term remedy, which often comes into conflict with the long-term gains. The problem is we are not merely animalistic, fleshly beings.  We are made in the image of God.  We are Spirit-breathed.  We are both Spirit and flesh.  This is the conflagrant conundrum.  Because of our spiritual nature, sometimes the eternal good requires the temporary delay of gratification of the flesh, and that is just UNNATURAL!  (Deny de...