Part 1: Part-Time Music Teacher, Full-Time Adult

This weekend, a former college roommate and very good friend of mine is coming to visit. She's been my most frequent houseguest since I moved to D.C., and houseguests seem to inspire me to write blog posts. Maybe it's because I really enjoy having people over, or maybe it's because my friends tend to be rather inspiring people.  

Regardless, both of those things are true, and even more regardless (that doesn't make much sense, but you get the idea), I realized I had started a nice post about this particular friend almost exactly a year ago. It still has some things worth saying, and I think that makes it worth posting. I'll give you a Part 2 post after this weekend, once I've had plenty of hours to catch up on her life and grill her for deep thoughts and godly wisdom from the past year.

Part 1: September, 2013

A good friend of mine just started a new job, and she called me the other day to talk about it. She is a music teacher, and after substitute teaching for a while after college, she just got hired at a small private school. Wonderful, right? Yes!

But at the same time, no. It wasn't at all what she expected, and on the surface, it wasn't in that wow-it's-so-much-better-than-I-could've-imagined kind of way. She's in charge of her own music program, but because it's a small school, it's only a few days a week, and she has to work part-time on top of this to make up the difference in salary. In other words, she has the long-term responsibility of a whole music program but only a few days a week in which to work this musical magic, and a second, unrelated job is sucking away her time. It's not quite the career track she had envisioned as a bright-eared vocal music major.

"But you know what?" she said, "I've been praying about all of this for a long time. I know this is what God has for me now, even though it's not how I wanted teaching to go, and I wish I didn't have to work two jobs. I know there will be unexpected hard things, but there will be unexpected good things too, so I can follow Jesus here."

She told me about talking to a younger girl about careers and such things recently, a girl who's a junior in college and itching to get out and on with life. "I told her to enjoy the rest of college and not wish it away, because life gets weird when you grow up. Not worse, but definitely weird!" And I agree. I love post-college life, and I'm glad to be at least a little more grown up (I hope) than I was then. But things certainly can get weird, and I'm not sure anything exactly prepares us for that.

Back to my friend. After only two weeks, she was scheduled to direct her first concert, which would be a daunting prospect even with months of rehearsals. Thankfully, it was for Grandparents' Day at school, so she had a crowd that's naturally inclined to enjoy children's singing. At the end of the concert, as everyone was leaving, several of the grandmas came up to thank her for the concert, and one of them said with a big smile, "Bangin' program, baby!"

So, sometimes things do not go the way we expect. Sometimes a very clear step is followed by a very confusing step, but sometimes God takes a sledgehammer to the wall in front of us and suddenly there's a door we didn't see coming. And sometimes, we meet hip and friendly grandmothers who have the surprisingly perfect encouragement we need to keep going.

His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; 

I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

Matthew 25:23