So…I won’t be at Southern High School next year…

Yeah, I’m leaving Southern, again. For those of you who were around when I made the decision to leave in 2006, you probably knew that I had no plans of returning. Nevertheless, God said differently and I ended up back at Southern after only being gone a year. That was two years ago, and now I’m gone again, and this time, it’s probably for real.

Psalm 37:23-25 (NIV)

23 If the LORD delights in a man's way,
he makes his steps firm;
24 though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
25 I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.

As we all know, the economy is messed up right now, and it hit the school systems pretty hard. Budget shortfalls mean less money and less money means something (or someone) has to be cut. In Durham, they cut about 200 positions in the public schools, including at least 15 from Southern. Now, despite my previous 5 year stint at SHS, my current tenure was fresh. Since I was rehired, it was basically like I started from scratch with no seniority. So when it came time to add people to the “surplus list” as they called it, my name was up there. That basically means that there was not a position for me at Southern for next year.

Mr. Barnes let me know of my situation on a Tuesday in the middle of May and then we got an email the next day saying that if we didn’t have a position lined up at another school by June 9, our contract would not be renewed and we would not be guaranteed a job. Nevertheless, with my faith in tact and the invaluable support of my wife, I made a call to another school that, fortunately, had expressed interest in me. From there, it was a surprisingly simple process for me to interview with Mr. Gilfort at the Performance Learning Center at Northgate Mall, because he decided to offer me the job as Social Studies Facilitator right there on the spot! So, essentially, I spent a total of two days allowing God to order my steps and put me into this position!

Not only that, but this new position comes with perks that will affect my life in positive ways that I had not anticipated. I’ll be starting Divinity School in the fall, working on my Master’s Degree, so time was going to be extremely tight, attempting to balance all of my responsibilities in and out of school. Managing that time is going to be key, and God, of course, already knew I was going to need help with that. So, He pushed me to a place that would help me in this. At the PLC, there are no afterschool extracurricular activities that I will have to volunteer my time for, and I will also be working a four-day week (that’s right, no work on FRIDAYS).

So what we have here is a very unique situation in order for God to give me more, He had to take away what I had. I still love Southern High School, especially the kids, but I quickly accepted that it was no longer in God’s plan for me to work there. So here I am, enjoying the summer, and getting ready to start work in a new place, and start a whole new phase of my life. I thank God that He’s controlling my steps, and that I’m smart enough to realize that His ways are better than my ways. There’s much more to come.

SpitLife