I should be sleeping, but I am too awake and have too much to say. Like many of you, I spent the
day hot-mess home-schooling. Maybe yours was Pinterest-worthy. Mine resembled more of a
dumpster-fire. And while I was “teaching” the little people in my home as if I never taught a day in
my life, I was taking calls and problem solving and texting and answering parents’ questions and
conference calling while hoping the chaos in my one-room schoolhouse wasn’t evident to those
on the other end of the line.
I should be sleeping because last night I slept almost not at all. When I finally did fall asleep, I
dreamed the same dream over and over. The topic you might ask? Work packets. Yes, indeed.
Every dream was about student work packets. Funny, and a wee bit disturbing. We didn’t have
enough. We didn’t know what to do with them. We didn’t know how to prepare them. We didn’t
know how to distribute them. In every dream I was solving problems pertaining to the work packets.
I should be sleeping, but I keep remembering how we talked just a few weeks ago that “perhaps
we are created for such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14) Long before we knew to add “COVID-19” to
our list of expected educational topics to tackle. And now it is very clear to me why my heart would
not let me save that thought for another day. I thought I was speaking to our current situations, not
knowing that I was actually speaking to the unthinkable events yet to come.
I should be sleeping, but I can’t stop wondering how I can circumvent “social distancing” and peer
into each of your faces to tell you that you were created for such a time as THIS too. The irony is
all the challenges we discussed (exhaustion, data, over commitment) do not really matter at all
now. And I don’t think any of us are questioning the sacredness of our calling as we watch the
world attempt to educate their children without us.
I should be sleeping, but instead I want to ask you the same question that I previously asked....
Who knows but that you have come to your position for such a time as this?
Perhaps you were created for such a time as this!
Not for Wally and Beaver Cleaver
Not for Laura and Mary Ingalls
Not for Opie Taylor
Not for Anne Shirley
Not for the children of your parents’ generation
Not for the Freedom Writers or the Ron Clark Academy or the Breakfast Club or the children of
Hope Valley or the Dead Poets Society.
SUCH A TIME AS THIS
Carissa Sapp, Lake Forest Middle School (Bradley County Schools)