Had you told me I would be writing a blog for Christian teachers back in 2010, I would have probably laughed at you.  I thought I was on top of the world.  I just had gotten my dream coaching job, and my first child was on the way.  Nothing could touch me.  I was a decent guy, going to church on Sundays and giving my time to a small group, but if you were to measure my spiritual temperature, I was rather tepid.  Lukewarm at best.  I took the parts of the Bible that I liked and applied them as needed, leaving out the heavy stuff.  God knew I needed something more.  Though I may have appeared to have it all together on the outside, my heart was not in the right place.

So, God began to humble me.  It began the first day I teed it up with my golfers on the 7^th hole to be exact.  Crushing a drive down the throat of the fairway, I felt a tweak in my back.  Something wasn’t right.  It was the beginning of two straight years of excruciating lower back pain.  My back feeling like a twisted pretzel, I slowly fell into a depression.  My son was born, but fatherhood was a struggle.  My marriage began to suffer.  I lost my passion at work as a teacher and coach.  And when my wife informed me that next February that we were pregnant again, I thought God was giving me more than I could handle.

Deeper and deeper I slid, spiraling out of control.  My second son was born.  Dark thoughts haunted my mind.  Life was meaningless to me.  Hopeless.  This wasn’t what I had signed up for.  Amazing what a year and a half will do to you when you are seriously depressed.  On May 7, 2012, I ended up in a hospital.  I was at the lowest of lows and took an extended summer break that allowed me to clear the cobwebs.  I had been broken down to nothing.  God humbled me beyond belief to where there was nothing left of my old self.  He took the mess that I was and began restoring me that summer.  Jesus Christ was the only constant I could turn to.  He welcomed me with open arms.

That summer of 2012 was a gamechanger for me.  The moment I began submitting to God, things started happening.  My back began to heal.  My marriage slowly mended.  I began to actually enjoy fatherhood.  The icing on the cake was when I arrived back to work in the fall.  God blessed me with the most memorable, kind-hearted group of students I had ever taught.  He knew I needed a break!  With God in my corner, I couldn’t go wrong.  That December of 2012 I made three bold decisions.  I decided to begin a staff Bible study with my colleagues, I joined a Saturday morning Bible study with a group of men at my church, and I decided to get baptized.

This blog was born in December of 2013 as a way to reach out to my prayer group and Bible study colleagues at my school, but since then it has become much more.  People told me to promote it out to others, so I did.  Through the glory of God the blog has spread to countries across the world, including Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, India, and Mexico.  It has served Christian teachers everywhere, and I hope it can serve you.  I challenge you to use it to strengthen your walk with Christ in the classroom and to boldly live out your faith.  Feel free to share it with whomever you think would benefit.  May we all be unashamed Christ followers in the classroom being used for His glory!