Robert Oprandy’s sixth question about combining personal and teacher identities is “How does language teaching fit into my vision of who I am (becoming) and how I’d like the world to be?” This is the hardest question of all six for me. The question Oprandy regards as the most important and understandably so, but I wonder if it is as important as we believe.

I honestly don’t know how teaching fits into my vision of what I am or who I am becoming. Since I was twelve, I planned on teaching (of course I’d been planning on being a writer since I was seven, but my grandmother talked me out of it, at least as a primary job). I didn’t have a clear idea what I wanted to teach, just that I would. As I continued to grow up, I thought I’d be a high school history teacher (I had a great one). I even studied history in college. Near the end of college I started to change my mind and decided I wanted to teach college level history instead of high school level. Well, my plans fell apart and neither position were possible for me after graduation. That’s when I found myself in China teaching English. A little connected to my original plan, but not much.

Now as I move toward the end of my third year teaching in China, it is clear I am to return to America. Why? No idea. Except everything seems to be pointing that way and I have an undeniable and indefinable peace from the Father. He also seems to be opening doors for a possible office job with ELIC in America. Not teaching this time – office work.

I look at the road I have traveled the last twenty-four years and it doesn’t make sense. It’s filled with contradictions and the impossible leaving me with no idea of where I am going or who I am becoming except in one area. I am becoming more obedient to the Father and I am going where He wants me to go.

So how does teaching fit my vision of who I am? It is what I was told to do and I (fairly) obediently have done for two and a half years. I have loved it and cried over it. I have worked toward excellence with no clearly defined goals except what ever He asks of me I will do to the best of my ability. I also trust He has a purpose for three years of EFL teaching and a Masters in TESOL though I don’t know what that purpose is. I guess my ultimate vision is to trust him completely and walk in obedience. In that sense, language teaching fulfills this vision as does writing and possible an office job. But the ultimate vision is the Father’s, not mine.

 So, how important is this question really? Or is the more important question about where your heart is, your focus? After all, can you really know what you’ll become before you do? We all have choices and our choices define our character, but not always what we become. There is so much more involved. Especially for those who lay down their lives and follow a path they have not drawn out, a path designed by a Creator who won’t tell where it goes, just asks us to trust Him. And that I do.