It had to be done eventually, so after 9 years and 2 moves, I finally tackled the project: Weed through seven boxes of files that I accumulated during my 5 years of teaching 5th grade. I remember carefully loading them into the storage boxes during my final days of teaching, my growing pregnant belly bumping into them while baby Naomi bumped around inside me. I worked really hard to fill those two big filing cabinets full of worksheets, units, and resources. I worked really hard to organize them, labeling them according to the state standards to I could easily cross-reference them with my lesson plans. And I didn't want all that hard work to go to waste in case I went back into the classroom.
Nine years later, going through them folder by folder, I realized that, in the ever-changing field of teaching, a lot of the stuff wouldn't be so useful anymore anyway. So now, I have two shelves of the best stuff in my little filing cabinet.
And all of this (below) is now gone.
I feel lighter, somehow! Its also a little sobering to think about how much of my work is so temporal. Though in the past the book of Eccesiastes seemed somewhat depressing to me ("Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!") I've taken encouragement from it more and more lately. Though by nature much of our work in this life is "vanity" (or a vapor, taken literally), God's gifts of joy and pleasure in that work bring Him glory. So I'm glad that He gave me a job doing something I enjoy, both then and now. Teaching (and organizing stuff!) definitely brings me pleasure, and I'm thankful I get the opportunity to do both every day!
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, for anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before Him. Ecclesiastes 3:14
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