This has been a difficult start to the school year (I know\u2026what a great first blog post, Mike\u2026but I was told vulnerability is okay). For many of us the last 18 months have been hard. There have been times when I\u2019ve wondered if I\u2019m the right person ACS needs during this challenging pandemic.<\/p>\n
Last year our wonderful Abbotsford Police Department (APD) School Liaison Officer was temporarily assigned to the recruiting division and more than once we joked about me joining the APD. But there\u2019s no way I could do the Peace Officers Physical Abilities Test<\/a>! I was never seriously considering it, of course\u2026could you imagine?! Now I\u2019m thinking back to the Police Academy movies<\/strong><\/span>\u2026haha.<\/p>\n I think what made this year so hard were my expectations and the reality in which we find ourselves. The year was filled with promise: a new building (which is absolutely awesome!), field trips, athletics, and extracurricular activities back in full swing, and no more cohorts! I thought these wonderful things were going to unite us and bring us back to a new sense of normalcy and community.<\/p>\n In reality, this hasn\u2019t always been the case. We are a diverse Christian community. This is a blessing and creates many opportunities for discussion and understanding around a whole host of topics. This diversity has also resulted in many perspectives related to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve felt a little like Solomon and the baby this year\u2026members of our community advocating for a perspective that personally means a lot to them, and I don\u2019t have the \u201cout\u201d that Solomon had\u2026we can\u2019t cut the pandemic in half to find the truth.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Thursday September 16 marked the first \u201creal educational\u201d conversation\/thing I did this school year (Thank you Dani, Patrick, Hieke, and Dan). I\u2019ve held on to that moment tightly. After all that\u2019s why I got into education.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Not to fantasize about joining the APD or becoming a part-time employee for Fraser Health COVID School Hub, or to be the chief officer of provincial policy interpretation (my post-pandemic resume is going to be an interesting one).<\/p>\n But these are realities I sometimes find myself in.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a self-proclaimed \u201crealist\u201d\u2026okay\u2026pessimist. It\u2019s easy for me to carry, remember, and have the negative define my experiences. This has made me exhausted<\/strong>.<\/span> I find myself praying for signs of God\u2019s prevailing power and presence during this time.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve found a few items of encouragement that God has blessed me with:<\/p>\n I suspect many of us are in a similar place. I\u2019ve prayed for signs and reminders of God\u2019s prevailing power. We can\u2019t do this on our own and we need Him to take us day by day.<\/p>\n It\u2019s my hope and prayer that we will be reminded of God\u2019s presence each day. That we hold on to that presence and remember that it\u2019s what unites us, and what will carry us through the inevitable ups and downs this year.<\/p>\n What encouragement has God blessed you these last few weeks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This has been a difficult start to the school year (I know\u2026what a great first blog post, Mike\u2026but I was told vulnerability is okay). For many of us the last 18 months have been hard. There have been times when I\u2019ve wondered if I\u2019m the right person ACS needs during this challenging pandemic. Last year […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":5810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,35],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-secondary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}No \u201cOut\u201d Option For Me<\/h2>\n
Back To Real Life<\/h2>\n
Life-giving Signs<\/h2>\n
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