I was raised in a faith tradition. I knew who Jesus was, I just didn’t see how He was relevant to me. My idea of God was as a cosmic version of my parents just waiting for me to mess up or to bail me out of some trouble into which I had gotten. My day to day life was very much in my control 😂. I was smart, so I could do this!
I had always been very comfortable in school, where I took pride in having the correct answers. School was my comfort zone, so I became an elementary school teacher. There I could be confident in my identity as the “smartest person in the room”. I was pretty sure that I was indeed smarter than a fifth grader. It was all going according to plan.
I was working as a fifth grade teacher in a small elementary school in Ohio on September 11, 2001. The school at which I taught handled that day poorly. My math class was interrupted that morning when the acting administrator made a school-wide public address announcement proclaiming the terrorist attack on the Pentagon and Twin Towers. Some of the teachers at my end of the hall turned on their classroom televisions to watch the news coverage with their students. (I said it was handled poorly.)
Education stopped in that moment, as the shock of what was happening in Washington DC and New York City became all that anyone could talk about. My students had questions: “Who did this?”, “Why do they hate us so much?”, “Are we safe?”, “What do we do now?”
I looked into their eyes, and for the first time in my career…I had no answers! I went into a crisis of identity – Who am I if I don’t have the answers?! I had to find the answers…but where?
Eventually, I remembered all those years of growing up and going to church. Jesus would have the answers I sought. I threw myself into Bible study and podcasts and Sunday school. A few months later in mid-December, I came to the realization of how much I needed Jesus in my life – not because I had received the answers for which I was looking, but because I hadn’t received ANY answers at all. The really strange part was that I was more than satisfied with this. I felt peace and joy, confident that my Savior is alive, sovereign, and good. I don’t have to know the answers, because I know and trust the One who does.