Sudden Death

My first year in New York was really hard.  First, I had to adjust to a new, fast pace, sometimes angry big city environment when I come from a laid back, easy going, slow pace country town.  Also, top this with teaching students who always tried to make fun of my accent.  I learned not to take it personal.  But that's not why the year was hard.  I moved here thinking that I was going to finish some recording, send my music off to a label and be signed and able to pay all of my bills through the deal.  This did not happen. 

Also, I had just become a Christian (Disciple) and I was trying to understand how to change in my character.  Man, I was struggling with pride big time and God was using this teaching experience to show me what it looked like.  While at the school, an incident happened that shook me to the core.  One of my 7th grade students who was so sweet and loving,  was hit by a bus as she was going home.  I didn't know the lesson that I was suppose to learn from that.  She was so young and how was I going to deal with the students the next day when I had my own emotions to deal with too? How was I going to help the teachers there, also?  But, what happened next amazed me.

When I walked into the school, they told me there was going to be a crisis counselor there and she was going to do a discussion with the children.  All I did was PRAY to see God's hands in this and to direct me in what to do.  He did.  The children took their focus off of themselves and began to focus on the little girl's family and their pain and they created cards to give to them.  I was blown away by their hearts and desire to be concerned about other people above themselves.  At the funeral, they were hurt, but controlled.  It was a moving experience, but after this first year, I was burned out and wanted nothing else to do with education.  I had to heal, so I decided to walk away from teaching and try to learn new things and I was lead to a whole new world:  the business world.