Laura Chapman Writes

Ever heard, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans?” Well, my own version would be, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you’ll never do!”

Starting out I was eager and ready to tackle my future. I believed in being prepared so nothing could possibly go wrong and read every book I could find on goal setting and organization so I would have the prefect life, while God gently chuckled. When parenting was on the horizon, I devoured every book in print on child rearing BEFORE my children were born so I would be a perfect parent and God laughed a little harder. (More on that one later…) Yup, I was ready.

I shared my husband’s intense dislike for cold weather so we agreed we would never live in the Northern US where it snows. We figured if we never put one of those locations on an assignment preference list, the chances were good we would avoid them.  And it absolutely worked.  In fact I’m pretty sure God responded with a loud guffaw and said, “No problem, instead you’re going to Iceland for two years.”

While there, we lived next door to a wonderful family who beautifully home-schooled all of their children.  These kids were amazing–they were polite, sailed through household chores without grumbling and way ahead of public school kids academically in every subject.  I was impressed beyond words but as much as I loved them personally, I was adamant that I would never, ever (ever) home school my own children.  It simply wasn’t for me. If I had wanted to teach, I would have gone to school to be a teacher and that was never even on my radar, no sir!

When we moved to Hawaii (after God realized his error in sending us to Iceland) we found ourselves instantly in love with the culture, climate and family focused (ohana) lifestyle of the islands; but we discovered the schools at that time were severely lacking. I found myself with no other choice and decided to home school my oldest daughter as God chuckled (again).  Easier and more beneficial than I had thought, each of my three children were homeschooled at different times over the next few years. I found myself with a new understanding of homeschooling families and truly felt they were unsung heroes but I still hadn’t learned my lesson.  In fact, I made a point of saying I would NEVER be a teacher in a real classroom for lots of reasons I don’t even remember now.

Fast forward fifteen years and here I am.  In a classroom.  Yup, I’m a teacher. And God is still laughing.

Yesterday I took this picture of a flower blooming right outside one of those classrooms where I would never teach.  Pretty sure it was a message just for me, straight from heaven.

And I promise I’ve learned my lesson about never saying never —  unless it’s about something crazy like sky diving or bungee jumping or swimming with sharks…right?