But the reality is, I happened to sign up for a job that requires occasional craftiness, whether I like it or not. The problem is, not only am I completely uncrafty; I am also Miss Frugal, remember? And I also thrive on being efficient. Which makes me dread those occasional calls for craftiness even more, because I know that they will force me to either compromise on my thriftiness or on my efficiency, or most likely, on both. (Sigh.)

So when my first grade team came up with the idea to do a “Science at Sunrise” party where we’d invite all of the parents to bring their kids a half an hour early to school to eat donuts and show off their interactive science journals we’ve been working on all year, I was all over it. Parent-teacher-student interaction, exhibiting the students’ hard work, and donuts? Sign me up! But then they came up with the brilliant idea of making it a “Bug Ball”- we’d all… students and teachers… come dressed up as our favorite bug. (Breathe deep, breathe deep…)

I thought about it, talked about it, researched it, all week. This week was particularly busy, and I was particularly tired. Not only did I have no desire whatsoever to come up with an elaborate costume, I also had no time or energy to do so. So I thought and thought and thought… and got nowhere. To add to my problems, I am also very stubborn and independent about things like this, so that meant absolutely no common costumes. No ladybugs, no butterflies, no bumblebees. So what? I thought a walking stick, or a praying mantis, but those were too hard, too expensive, too time-consuming.

I finally relented on my need for uniqueness, and I typed in “worm costume” in google images. Voila! The easiest, most creative, cheapest costume I could possibly find.

(Are you ready for this?)

• Two red pieces of poster board. One dollar each.
• Two pieces of string, green and brown construction paper. Free.
• One red ski hat. 98 cents at the first and only thrift store I went to.
• A stuffed animal worm. Free on loan from a fellow teacher.

Literally fifteen minutes later, I had an awesome costume that got me dozens and dozens of compliments all day.

The kids were happy, I was happy, my co-teachers (who probably feared I’d forgo the costume altogether) were happy.

And at the end of the day, I was still my frugal, efficient, stubborn, unique self.

It’s okay to break the mold sometimes.

And our classroom cardboard horse also broke some mold of his own.

And all this without going insane.

So how am I keeping my sanity?

First, it seems cliché, but with a lot of prayer. All day. From the time I’m driving to work in my car to the time the bell rings, and long after that, when I’m still in my room grading papers or filling out endless paperwork. Many days (more than I care to admit) go by when this is not the case, when I leave my prayers in the car and don’t utter a word to the Lord all day. But those days are always miserable, and remind me of my utter dependency on Him and utter helplesness to do anything, and be anywhere close to a good teacher, apart from His constant guidance and grace.

Next, by laughing. A lot. Every morning during Calendar Time I have one goal: to get the kids laughing as much as possible. If I accomplish my goal (usually through silly voices or dancing, but sometimes I get pretty creative), I’ve got the kids full, enraptured attention for hours on end. It’s amazing. The harder we laugh, the more we learn, and the better we get along. If I come in with a bad attitude, so do the kids. I hold the key. Not a very pleasant thought, but one that reminds me that my ability as a clown is just about, if not more, important than all the clever lesson planning and use of technology in the world.

And last but not least, by teaching them things that aren’t anywhere in the curriculum, only in my heart. The kids sense that it comes from Miss Moore, not the district curriculum, and they know it must be worth learning.

Things like how to ask forgiveness (something I wish someone had taught me, really taught me, as a child, something that I’m just now learning and mostly failing at), and how to receive it graciously, and how to treat ladies with respect. Every day this week and last we’ve been taking our little plants out to water them (in the water fountain, of course… very high tech, I know) and give them sunlight, and every day last week the boys all but trampled the girls on their way back into the building. So I took the opportunity to teach them what the word gentleman means, and how gentlemen should treat ladies. Now, the boys stand up straight and tall, with a giddy smile on their faces, as they let the ladies pass by. They fight each other over who gets to hold the door open for the girls. And they practically clobber any boy who dares go through a door at the same time a young lady is trying to enter. And I’m teaching the ladies how to respond to such acts of gentlemanly service. A sweet chorus of  “Thank you’s” now drones out the “Hey, you’re cutting me!’s” that used to characterize our line. It’s not politically correct by any means, but it makes for a very happy teacher who can only hope that they will remember what it means to be a gentleman and to show acts of kindness to others long after they’ve forgotten what our word wall words and spelling patterns were.

And that’s what being a teacher is all about. It’s so easy to forget.

But today I think I topped the list off.

I killed a classroom pet.

“Really, Joey?” You’re probably thinking, with raised eyebrows, “You don’t seem like the type to keep classroom pets.” I’m not. At all. But this six weeks we’re doing a life cycle unit in science, which means (gulp) whether I like it or not, I get to keep twenty squirmy little mealworms in my classroom until they turn into beetles.

And today I killed one. Drowned it, to be precise. To make things worse, I had it up on the document camera, so its death was projected on a giant screen for all to see.

The curriculum said to use an eye dropper to squeeze a little bit of water onto a mealworm to see what would happen when it got wet. Then the kids were supposed to write down their before and after observations. I was running late this morning and eye droppers were not on my radar, so I figured the squirty part of my water bottle would work just fine.

I guess I squirted a bit too much.

First, it started moving really lethargically, like an old man with a walking stick, if it is permissible to make such a comparison.

Then, it started convulsing and jumping around, as if it were having a seizure. I’m sure if it had eyes like ours, they would have been rolling back in its little worm head. The crowd went wild. I started wondering if I had done something wrong.

And then it stopped moving altogether.

The kids got really upset and kept exclaiming “It’s dead, it’s dead”, but I assured them it was just napping, and tried to convince them that it was still moving by jabbing it endlessly with a pencil. Don’t think that helped the situation.

But I’m about 100% positive that Miss Moore did indeed kill the poor mealworm. One of my smarter kids drew a picture of a dead mealworm for the “after” picture.

And then, to make matters worse, I didn’t know what to do with a dead mealworm, so I put it back in one of the tupperwares with oatmeal with the other live ones.

This is why Miss Moore does not keep permanent classroom pets.

And this is one of the many reasons Miss Moore needs a summer break. Soon and very soon.

Me: What do you think I’m drinking?

Edward: Water?

Me: (with a twinkle in my eye) Yep… magic water.

(20 pairs of awe-filled eyes are now watching me drink my magic water.)

Edward: What’s that, Miss Moore?

Me: You know, magic water… every time I drink it, it makes me a better, smarter, more beautiful teacher!

(I smugly take another sip.)

Josué: (gasps) Miss Moore, you’re right! You do look more beautiful!

(19 other kids nod in unanimous agreement.)

One things for sure… nobody has to tell me to drink plenty of water every day!

(I suppose this could be me if I keep it up!)

Not this one, though. Not by a long shot. I wish I could take you by the hand and let you sit in a corner of my classroom for an hour or so, just to see what I’m talking about. You’d probably notice right away how well-behaved and well-mannered they are. I wish I could take credit for that, but almost all of them came to me that way. And the ones that didn’t were thankfully quick to follow suit.

So what makes this group of kids so special?

- Their contagious happiness. They come in with bright smiles every morning (they know that they can’t come into Miss Moore’s class without a smile, but I don’t have to remind them very often). They remind me to smile, too. Not with their words, but with their happiness, love for life, and quirky sense of humor.  - Their story-telling. I suppose every first grader loves to tell stories, but this group does in particular. Nearly every day, even my shyest ones come up to me in any spare time they can find, and start telling me all about how their dog just had puppies, or how their little sister nearly caused a fire the night before, or how they saw a classmate at the store. I don’t always have time to listen, but I’ve learned to make time. I may be the only one in their lives who does.

- The way they always keep my stomach happy. At the beginning of the year when a few of the students brought me a random cookie or homemade gordita, I guess I over-exaggerated my enthusiasm. “Oh, I love it when friends bring me food in the morning! Yummmm!!” So now I think they have it in their heads that Miss Moore loves food (she does), and often bring baggies of whatever they have at home, from muffins to tamales to papaya. One boy’s dad just started working at a donut shop. He can’t stop talking about it, and loves to bring me whatever new thing his dad just learned to make. The other day, the kids earned lunch in my classroom, and I noticed him holding the tray with one hand and corrected him. “Oh, Miss Moore, it’s okay, because I help my dad in the donut shop, so I know how to do it.” I couldn’t help but laugh.

The Proverbs have much to say about desires, both unfulfilled and fulfilled. Don’t tune me out here; take a minute to let these verses sink in. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” “A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools. “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” “The desire of the righteous ends only in good; the expectation of the wicked is wrath.” “She (wisdom) is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” Notice in this last proverb that Solomon does not condemn desires. He does not say, “nothing you desire can compare with her, so take care that you don’t desire anything but wisdom.” He simply acknowledges that in comparison to wisdom, all other desires fade away.

Unfulfilled desires have been on my mind a lot lately. Men and women, like myself, who desire godly marriage but are still single. Ladies who desire children but are infertile. Young people who desire to serve God in specific ways but are prevented from doing so for whatever reason. I’m not talking about sinful desires; I’m referring to godly, good, God-given desires. What do you do with these desires? Prayer, you say? Yes, but how? How many times have you heard someone say, “I’ve had this desire for a long time, and I’ve finally come to the point where I’ve asked God to either fulfill the desire or take it away”? This may sound spiritual, but is it really the answer- giving God an ultimatum to either meet our desires or kill them? This prayer, I am convinced, reveals our deep-rooted legalistic tendencies to want to do, to fix, to solve, and to expect God to do the same.

My pastor said something a few weeks ago that made my ears perk up. He was preaching on James 1, about “trials of various kinds” in the believer’s life, and as he mentioned some of these possible trials, he included unfulfilled desires. We tend to think of trials in terms of what we have but do not want, rather than what we do not have but want. Solomon nailed it when he said that hope deferred, aka, unmet desires, makes the heart sick. If heartsickness is not a trial, then I don’t know what is.

I’m still figuring out what to do with unfulfilled desires, and how to counsel those who have them. In the past I’ve tended to squelch or ignore them, or try to pray them away, but more often than not, it simply doesn’t work. The desire remains, and I am left frustrated. Guilty. Disappointed. Tonight at church, when I should have been listening to the sermon, I couldn’t get this topic out of my head, and so I decided to jot some rough-draft notes down in the little green journal that I always keep in my purse for occasions such as these. Here are some conclusions that I have come to and that I am still working and wrestling through.
- Desires, when allowed to flourish in a gospel-centered way rather than being squelched, serve as a powerful metaphor of how much we need and should desire Christ. For example, Ps. 63:1- if David had always been given water when thirsty in a dry and weary land, he would never have been able to recognize and articulate that same void, that same desire, within his own heart for God.
- Is it biblical to give God an ultimatum either to fulfill the desire or take the desire away? Shouldn’t we be praying instead for the desire, as long as it is a good, biblical desire, to continue as long as it is needed to sanctify and conform us to Christ’s image and point us to our greater desire of Christ until we can say with the psalmist, “And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides (Heb., in comparison to) You”? Learn to live with desire. Learn to live with tension- it will draw you closer to Christ.
- We are to be stewards of the desires God gives us. Instead of pretending they are not there or wishing/praying them away, we should rejoice in them, as in all trials, and trust and pray for God to fulfill or rearrange them in His own perfect timing, trust that He knows, He understands, He is sovereign, He is sufficient.
- Often we equate strong desires with not trusting God enough or not being “spiritual” enough. Instead of feeling guilt, we should practice the spiritual discipline of waiting on the Lord.
- What do you do, then, with unfulfilled desires?

• You embrace the desire and pray for grace to honor Him through it.
• You praise God for the desire and entrust it to Him.
• You let the desire point you to your deeper desire for Christ.
• You pray boldly.
• You wait joyfully.
• You rest peacefully in God’s sovereign will.

My baby nephew’s desires ultimately point him to his need and desire for his loving parents who always have his best in mind. And so with us. Let us not waste our desires. Let us allow them to point us to the One who planted the desire deep within us, and who planted even deeper within us the need and desire for Him.

I stuck up my nose over such frivolity then, and I continue to stick it up now. Teacher world, meet Miss Frugal. First year Miss Frugal found all sorts of ways to save on teaching supplies. Don’t buy books; make friends with the librarian and get them from him. And why go to the Container Store and spend wads of cash on storage tubs when you can make cute matching tubs out of boxes and colored butcher paper? (That was my mom’s idea. I definitely recommend having a teacher mom. It’s fantastic.) But alas, Miss Frugal meets an expensive problem that sends even the thriftiest of teachers running to the dollar store and emptying out their coin purses on a regular basis… the prize box. As an essential and beloved component of every well-managed elementary classroom, keeping a prize box stocked is harder than it sounds. My first week of teaching, to my great delight, the teacher next door donated a huge bag of McDonald’s toys. But that only lasted about two months. And thus began the prize box saga.

Over the past year and a half I’ve come up with many solutions to this dilemma. Lure the kids away from the prize box by having as many free “prizes” as possible, and call them out before you call out the prize box option. Take your shoes off for a whole hour for only three dollars! Borrow a pillow or stuffed animal to read with! Read one of Miss Moore’s books! Going once, going twice? You get the idea. It’s a good strategy, but the kids are still drawn like magnets to the prize box, and they quickly realize what it means to save their money for bigger and better things. Last Christmas I even raised the price from five class dollars to seven, but it hasn’t deterred my determined kiddos one bit.

 So this year, I rolled up my sleeves and resolved to get to the bottom of this problem. No, I didn’t go to a garage sale or a thrift store. Those can be expensive, too; a quarter is a quarter, not to mention the time and energy that thrifty shopping involves. I went instead to my closet, and cleaned out everything I thought might be of some small worth in a first grader’s mind, asking my roommates and family members to do the same. Old bandanas, broken cell phones, you name it. Oh, Aunt Ruthann, are you getting rid of those canvas bags? I know of a good home for them… Hey, are you throwing away that Christmas light necklace? I can put it in my prize box. It doesn’t work? No matter! And so on and so forth, until I had a great collection of… junk. One man’s junk is every child’s treasure, I’m finding. My co-teachers laugh at me, because my kids sit in line after school each Friday, boasting about their empty pill bottles and talking on their broken cell phones. Yes, they got it all from my prize box. And Aunt Ruthann’s canvas bags? Well, let’s just say I had to have a little talk with my kids, because it became fashionable to give up their sturdy Spiderman and Barbie backpacks for the cheap prize box ones, which were definitely not made to support so many library books and folders. Let’s leave those at home, shall we, friends?

But recently I have run into another problem. You can only clean out your closet so many times. And you only see Aunt Ruthann a few times a year. Back to the Dollar Tree? No way, Jose. Surely there was another way. There’s always another way. Last Friday, the kids were complaining that the prize box was getting very low, and suddenly, it came to me. Voila. Why not set up my own thrift store? Why not make the kids supply their own prizes for the prize box? And so, nearly every morning since my adamant suggestion, kids have been bringing in stashes of old toys (which I’m positive their mothers have been more than happy to relinquish) and treasures. What’s in it for them, you say? Class money, of course. Hmm, Roberto. That looks pretty nice. I’ll give you three dollars for it, does that sound like a deal? Today, the first day our little thrift store prize box was open to the public, I watched as kids eagerly grabbed their classmate’s old, forgotten toys. I noticed that some of the treasures that had been in the prize box at the beginning of the year were even recycled back into the prize box, and even those were snatched.

Miss Frugal is happy. So are her kids, who are learning important values, like recycling and sharing and saving. I just have to wonder what the parents think when their kids come home with their prized junk. “Sweetie, what’s that?” “I have no idea, but isn’t it great?” Yep. That’s what happens when you entrust your naïve little baby into the hands of the thriftiest teacher you’ll ever meet.

I feel like I’ve learned a new language this month, only this language doesn’t have any new grammars to crack or scripts to learn. It’s the language of personal finances. So, with a heart to pursue wisdom in stewarding the money the Lord has given me, I set out to learn the lingo, kicking myself all the while for not paying better attention in my 11^th grade Economics class. I read websites, checked out books from the library, even connected with a financial advisor from my church. And although I still have a long way to go, and there is still much more vocabulary to learn before I’ll be anywhere near fluent in this language, I’ve learned a few key concepts. The younger you start investing, the better, and you don’t need very much to start out with. (That one was my favorite). Don’t invest in anything you don’t understand. Diversify your investments to cushion against future losses. And most importantly, time is the key. It’s all about long-term; kind of like a life-long roller coaster where the longer you stay on, the more reward you get.

But, as you might have imagined, I did not write this blog primarily to share my new wealth of knowledge (pun obviously intended). Yes, it’s good, it’s crucial, it’s biblical, to be wise with the finances God has entrusted us with. The wiser we are, the more resources we will have to give to others and to the Lord’s work. Certainly, we don’t want to be like the servant who hid his money in a hole instead of investing it. But at the end of the day, it will all burn up, whether you get a return of 4% or 20% for your money, or none at all. And so, in one sense, investing in finances is somewhat like building an elegant mansion in the sand. The waves will inevitably come crashing down, sooner or later. So what then, if not money? What will outlast the waves of time? These are questions that far outweigh any other, not only for brand new adults but for children and senior citizens and teenagers alike.

Fortunately, we are not left in the dark as to the answer. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.” “Not [setting] their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God… rich in good works… thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” The Lord makes it crystal clear in these passages (and in many, many others) that our true treasure does not have anything to do with investing in money, but with investing in the kingdom. I might be the wisest 22-year old possible in regard to financial investments and decisions, but if I am not making investments in the kingdom, it is all worthless- vanity of vanities. If, on the other hand, I make daily deposits into the treasury of God’s kingdom, then I will have a good foundation for the future, and then I will find life. Every conversation, every minute of free time, every choice at work, every relationship… these are all investments for the future, made either to the world or to the kingdom. Scary thought, isn’t it? Much scarier than what mutual fund to invest in or how to budget effectively. Remember Jesus’ words to his disciples after they watched the rich young ruler walk away? “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time… and in the age to come eternal life.” A hundredfold- sounds like a pretty amazing rate of return to me! But I left out a key prepositional phrase from Jesus’ words: “with persecutions”. Investing in the kingdom will cost you. It may cost you everything. But the more you know Him, the more you come to treasure Him, to value Him, to trust Him, and the less value you begin to place on anything this world can offer.

My financial advisor was patiently trying to explain the concept of dollar cost averaging to me the other day. I’m still struggling to understand it all, but he made a good point: if you understand this concept and live by it, then even when you see your money going up and down in years to come, and even when you aren’t getting the pretty dividends other people around you may be getting, you will keep holding on for the ride, because you will know that your reward in the end will make it all worth it. So with the Christian walk. The more you seek to understand Christ, the more you will treasure Him above all else, and as more persecutions and hardships come, you will keep holding on for the ride and keep investing unreservedly with everything you are, with everything you have. Because in this jar of clay you know you are holding unsurpassable, eternal treasure in Christ. This is the only kind of growing up that matters.

A few days ago, the question of the day was, “What should we name the rat in the attic?” (There have been many complaints of late concerning strange sounds coming from above the living room and the master bedroom.)
Within hours, the board looked something like this:

B: Remy from Ratatouille. That’s a long name. I meant Remy for short, silly. I know, j/k!

J: Bob. That’s funny, that’s my dad’s name.

A: Arthur. Cute.

J₂: How about Trita? The rat in the attic. That’s cute, is it from a movie? No, it’s an acronym!

Okay, guys, how about Remytrita Bob Arthur? We can call it Raby for short.

Fast forward a few days, and all four of us are sitting around the dinner table. Three of us have just eaten dinner (a delicious meal prepared for us by our resident culinary arts teacher), and the fourth one just came home from work and is sitting down to a hot mug of glue wine. I know, I had never heard of it either. Apparently it’s very popular in Germany. But that’s beside the point. The topic of tonight’s conversation is intentionality in our home. How can we make our house a blessing for each other, our friends, our local church, and our neighbors? We each excitedly throw out ideas, some of which we’ve already begun to put into place. Sponsoring missions projects together, like a local missionary in Asia or a Compassion child. Inviting neighbors over for dinner. Hosting babysitting nights for families at church. And… and… well, somehow, the conversation quickly morphs from missional living to—you guessed it—Raby the Rat.

Everything is kind of a blur after that. The attic door is pulled down, and soon two giggling roommates, one in her bathrobe and another in a classy pea coat, are balancing on the wooden beams and shining their flashlights around the attic. One dons her very fashionable head lamp and runs around to the other entrance. I just stand in the hallway for a few minutes, making fun of them and commenting on how great a blog this will make, but soon I join in the fun. “Raby, Raby, where are you?” “What if it’s not a rat?” “Maybe it’s a possum.” “Maybe there’s not an animal at all. We’re just calling out to a bunch of suitcases and white fluffy stuff.” “Hey, don’t spoil the fun.” “Well, what are we going to do if we find it?” “Feed it poisonous green pellets? I think my fiancé’s done that.” “That seems so cruel, now that we’ve given it a name and all.” “Poor Raby.” “We should catch him and put him in a cage… a housepet!” Luckily, we don´t have to make any life or death decisions, because Raby never shows. I doubt he ever will. But regardless, we all came down from the attic with a renewed sense of roommate bonding. You can’t plan moments like that. They just happen. And I’m glad they do.

As I was writing this, one of my roommates (the robed one) came in.

“So, I’m writing a blog about Raby.”

“You would…”

“Well, maybe someone will read it and see how cool we are and want to move in… we’ve been looking for a fifth roommate…”

(silence)

“Oh, I get it… a fifth, because Raby’s our fourth?”

“No… umm… a fifth because there are four of us…

“Oh, haha! I meant.. er.. a sixth.”

“I’m totally putting that in my blog.”

“Sigh. You can’t do anything around here without it being written in your blog or in your Writer’s Workshop at school!”

(evil grin)