Regaining Sanity One Laugh at a Time

I have a fellow teacher, named Bev, who is an absolute treasure. She's southern, with a fantastic sense of humor, an easy-going personality, and a non-intimidating conversational style. We totally clicked, very early in the year. I love her! She's the science/math teacher, so, as you will know if you read my last entry, she is the one who was out last Monday.

The catch is, she asked her husband to call the school to let the headmaster know, and her husband forgot to do so. Consequently, no one knew where she was. Calling her cell phone wasn't working, and we didn't know her home phone number. Despite my generally optimistic outlook, I couldn't help wondering if something awful had happened and she was dead or something. I was relieved to see her the next morning.

Today was parent/teacher conference day (yes, these two things will tie together eventually). I only had ONE conference scheduled, so the day was practically a day off for me (I lead a charmed life). I popped in to talk to Bev after my conference, and we ended up having the best chat ever!

And in the midst of said chat, I had a very "Tuesdays with Maurie" moment, because I remembered that during that past Monday, when I thought she was dead or something, I was really horrified at the thought that I'd never let her know how much she meant to me. So I told her the story of how I thought she was dead (with a lot of laughter on both sides), and then I told her how much she has helped me this year.

Being a first year teacher, I'm still getting used to my co-workers as well as the way things work at the school. In recent months my patience has been short when it comes to some personality quirks and people's blunt ways of approaching things. I grit my teeth in the teacher's lounge much more often than I do in the classroom. But what has helped me immensely is Bev's approach. Over and over my blood pressure would be rising, and I would hear her laugh. I would suddenly realize that I don't have to be irritated by this! I could laugh it off! The personality clashes were becoming a big deal in my mind, and she saved my life repeatedly. She is like oil on troubled waters: a peacemaker without even knowing it.

As I told this to Bev, she seemed quite surprised, as well as happy to hear it. She told me that her first year at the school she'd also had a hard time dealing with the other teachers. But it got better once she adjusted. And then she blessed me so much by telling me that she had noticed I was bothered a couple of times when things were said to me (this kind of scared me, actually, because I thought I hid it pretty well. She and I are pretty similar in some ways, though, so maybe that has something to do with it.), and she had prayed for me those days! Can you believe it?! It was my turn to be surprised and happy. I had no idea she'd prayed for me! I had a secret ally!

I came out of the room loving her even more than when I'd walked in. I passed on a compliment to her, and got back a whole new understanding of God's goodness in providing us with people like that.

Just wanted to share my happy tale:)