Lesson #8: I Can't Control the Time

"Todo en su tiempo" is an expression that I heard my great-aunt and grandmother say a lot when I first came to Central America. It means "everything in its time." Time is something that I have been learning to deal with here. Yesterday morning I discovered that the batteries in my classroom clock had stopped working. As a result, I spent the entire day glancing at the clock to check the time, but only to learn that the time was still stuck at 10:40. Being a person that constantly wants to know the time and be on schedule, I was very distraught by the clock's lack of service. This morning when I stepped into my classroom, the clock was shattered on the ground! Somehow it had fallen and broken to tiny pieces on my floor! This, of course, was even more disturbing. I swept the pieces into the trash can and put the clock away. Now whenever I unconsciously check the time, I am glancing at a vacant spot on my whiteboard where the clock used to hang. Not knowing the time is hard for me. I want to know how much time I have to complete the things that need to be done. I want to be sure that the important things get accomplished. I feel like I don't have this control if I don't know the time.
The clock's decision to retire happened at an interesting time in my life. I feel as though the end of my time in Copan is very near. Consequently, I've been seriously searching and applying for teaching jobs back in the United States. In fact, I applied for Teach for America and actually got to the third part of the application process-the in-person interview. Although I was super excited to have been invited for the interview, I would have had to pay around $700 to fly back to the United States and I would have had to miss work. I also would have had to fill out and request lots of different papers and transcripts. It all felt like so much work. In the end, as I prayed, I realized that the reason it felt like so much work was because I was working too hard. In fact, I wasn't trusting God to provide me with the job. I was afraid that I won't have a job when I return to the United States. Instead, God told me to wait...and rest. I don't need to know what my future will look like right now. Really, I don't know what I'm waiting for. I don't know if it's a teaching job or a different opportunity that looks nothing like what I'm imagining. I just know that God wants me to trust Him. I, of course, am still applying for jobs; but I am trusting God to work out the details. As the clock has stopped telling the time in my classroom, I need to give God the control of the time. "Todo en su tiempo." Or, maybe..."Todo en Su Tiempo." "He has made everything beautiful in his time." -Ecclessiastes 3:11