“Point your kids in the right direction-when they’re old they won’t be lost.” Proverbs 22:6 the message

My younger sister retired this week. She was a teacher for the greater part of her life. Honestly she has always been a teacher. Teachers are born. There is an innate gifting within teachers that are with them from the time they can talk I believe. I’ve always admired the profession my sister chose and she was good at it.

I was a teacher’s aide for a year and I loved each part of it. At the beginning of the year I considered going back to school so that I could become a teacher. The teacher I work with asked me to give a spelling test and I gladly obliged. But I found that the mom in me was much stronger than the teacher in me. I basically mouthed each letter of each word in the spelling test. None of the students got any of the answers wrong. It was then that I realized I was not a teacher.

Teaching is a gift. As parents we do teach our children. We teach them how to eat, how to walk, how to speak. We reinforce what they learn in schools. But there are those who are chosen to be teachers and I have known a few. I admire them and respect them, especially my younger sister. She has taught many many students over the years. Some she taught for two years as she taught a younger grade and then years later moved to an older grade and had the same round of students. She has touched lives in ways that they will always remember. How often do we think back to our own teachers? I had favorite teachers and I had some teachers that really scared me. The students, the people who the grown ups now who had my sister will fondly remember her. I don’t question that. She instilled in them a truth, faith, and the things that are taught from books. She also, I know, taught them several things that are never found in books. These are the things that these people were carry on in their lives. This will be what they teach their children. She will have inspired a generation. I stand in awe of what she has accomplished with her life.

So, congratulations to my sister. Enjoy your retirement I know now that it is summer and it is like every other year you finish school. Wait until August and September though and there’ll be no more Monday mornings that you have to scramble to get out the door. Have fun in this new adventure.