If you don't know what the pity pool is, I will explain. It's the pool we all sit in once in a while splashing around, having a grand old time feeling sorry for ourselves. Come on, be honest, you sit in it once in a while, too!! I know I do - way more than I have any right to. Yesterday my pity pool was more like a tidal wave. Seriously!!
Our community Garage Sale is coming up at the end of June. You may or may not know that I moved way more preschool stuff than any preschool teacher could possibly use even if she taught school for 50 years. That is no joke. I am not proud of my preschool stuff hording disease, but it is a fact that we live with daily. We moved into a home with a 3 car garage and my preschool stuff took up two sides of it. You see what I mean? My justification in feeding my disease was that I loved teaching, kids need variety to learn well, I had a strong desire to expose my students to as many methods of teaching a concept as possible (it was that no kid left behind idea - everybody learns differently) as well as trying to have them experience as many new things as possible. If that is a teachers teaching philosophy - she is gonna have stuff! Nuff said??
Anyway, back to the Garage Sale...with the upcoming garage sale and the looming stacks of preschool tubs and the fact that I have retired from being a preschool teacher, it seemed obvious, it was time to spread the preschool stuff wealth. So we started sorting tubs and boxes - I looked in each one and designated it for the "keep" stack or the "garage sale" stack. As the garage sale stack slowly grew and eventually filled a whole wall on one side of the garage, I grew more somber by the minute. And very soon, I had made a beautifully executed swan dive into -- the pity pool.
I looked at the stacks of preschool teaching materials that I was going to be parting with and the tears came. Even now, I am teary. "I need a moment", I told my husband and had to escape - walk away from the memories, walk away from the stuff that was a reminder that I will not be teaching again. From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher. That's all I ever wanted to be - well, beside a mom or a nun....(whaaaaat?) The nun phase didn't last too long - in 4th grade Jimmy Simutis caused me to rethink that one.
First I walked the backyard, it's big so it took a while. Then I sat in the sun, just thinking and mind talking to myself. (Does anyone else do that?) 'This is the end of an era and it is sad.' 'Being a teacher is who I am.' 'It's what I love doing.' 'I am not ready to stop being a teacher.' 'Why do I have to get rid of all my stuff?' 'Maybe I will teach again.'
Then, the voice of reason - probably the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:23) - said - "Get out of that pool and go dry yourself off......you taught preschool for a season, be grateful for the time you had as a teacher, God is doing a new thing in and with your life, it's time to move on, get a new attitude, girl, in other words -- get - over - it!!"
I realized I need to embrace the new things God has in store for me and let go of the past. Oh I have always been on board for the new stuff, don't get me wrong, but I still kept hanging on to the old what ifs. What if I teach again? What if I need it? What if, what if, what if??? The lesson I learned in yesterdays pity pool was -- the past is the past - it's over, it's done - there's no what if. I need to embrace the new with my head, with my heart and with both hands. For I believe that perhaps hanging on to the past and the what ifs may have actually been holding me back from what God has in store in this new season of my life. We shall see!
Apply this lesson to your life: What might be holding you back from a new thing that God wants to do in your life?
No pity pools allowed!!
"Then Jesus gave them this illustration: "No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn't even match the old garment. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. For the new wine would burst the wine skins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wine skins." Luke 5: 36-38
"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws." Ezekiel 36: 26 & 27
"Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes." Ephesians 4:23
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