JennieGScott.com

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  • You’ll End Up In Jail

    “You’re fat.”

    “You’re worthless.”

    “You’ll end up in jail just like your father.”

    This week my freshmen and I talked about the power of words for both good and evil, and I asked them to respond to the quote, “Words break no bones, but they do break hearts.” And, let me tell you, there are some 15 year olds out there with broken hearts.

    I expected my kids to have some experience with word-wounds, but I had not anticipated the depth of what they would share. They wrote of parents constantly belittling them and peers teasing mercilessly. They wrote of hearing that they are good for nothing and have no hope for a bright future. They wrote of words they had said themselves and regretted instantly…

    They wrote, and my heart ached.

    I remember being their age and in their shoes, and I remember words from those days. I remember words and looks and rebuffs and sideways glances, and I remember the tears I shed. But even now, decades removed, I am hurt by those very same things. Your heart doesn’t have to be young to be tender, and you don’t have to be in school to be rejected. We all know the power that others can have over us.

    We know their power, but we forget ours.

    “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).

    Every word we utter will yield some sort of power – will show some sort of fruit – and whether it is positive or negative, bitter or sweet, is completely dependent on us. We get to choose.

    I so badly want for my students to hear uplifting and encouraging words, but I also need for them to understand that regardless of what they hear, they are responsible for what they speak. I want that for all of us, actually.

    Without a renewal of my mind and a prayer for the Holy Spirit to tame my tongue, I will wield a weapon every time I open my mouth. We each know the conditions that make us vulnerable to the torch of the tongue. For me, it’s being tired and stretched too thin, but we must also know that we are without excuse because we have been told that it is an issue of life and death. We cannot take what we say lightly. Others are standing at the ends of our words, and their lives may depend on the way we speak to them. We can cause permanent damage and inflict never-forgotten pain, or we can build up and encourage.

    Lord, tame our tongues.


    I’m linking today to www.missionalwomen.com and www.christianmommyblogger.com

  • For My Students

    I am a teacher, and tonight – the night before school starts back – the honest to goodness truth is that right now I could not care less about how much English literature my students learn from me this year. 

    After an encounter today with someone who just wasn’t very nice, it occurred to me that I would rather every student fail the End of Course exam if, in exchange, they could learn to be good people who do everything in their power to make this world better. I know far too many well-educated people who only make this world more difficult for others and leave hurt in their wake. What good is it to know lots of information if you don’t know how to love? 

    Tonight, my lessons are planned and tomorrow I will teach English, but I will fail as a person and disciple of Jesus if I forget what really matters. So students, this is what I reallywant you to know.

    I want you to know that what you do and say to others really matters. I can remember something unkind said to me over 20 years ago, and I still have a scar from the wounds of his words. You may think you’re being funny, but to the butt of your joke, it’s not a laugh. It’s a wound. And some wounds never heal.

    I want you to be responsible for the choices that you make. I lose patience when you won’t bring a pencil to class, but it’s not just about the pencil. It’s about your choice to waste an education that people in the same world as you don’t have the chance to receive. Yours is free. Don’t take it for granted.

    I want you to know that you must take time to chill. Yes, education is important, but so is enjoying life. I agonized as a student over every single point, and I nearly had an ulcer before graduation. Life wasn’t fun for me then, and at the end of the day, I was miserable. Don’t be like me.

    I want you not to be a victim. Yes, your life at home may be a nightmare. You might come to school without a pencil because there is no one who cares enough to buy you one. Life is hard, and you deserve some help. But you cannot use the hardship as an excuse not to succeed. Work harder than everyone else and you will have a life unlike everyone else. You play a role in the future you will live.

    I want you to be kind. To everyone. I know that girl may dress funny and use too-big words, and I get it that that guy just moved here from somewhere strange. But they – like you – need a friend and a place to sit at lunch. Do you want to eat by yourself? Of course not. So don’t let anyone else have to sit alone.

    I want you to know that I’m here for you. Stop laughing. I really am. I could make way more money and get far more respect doing something else. (For the record, just in the past week I was called a “glorified baby-sitter” among some other choice names. Some people think teaching is a joke.) I’m hard on you because I know you can do better, and I ride your case because I’m imagining something great for you. If I start to get on your nerves, which is almost guaranteed, try to remember that I see something in you that you haven’t seen in yourself yet.

    I want you to know that I want great things for you, but greatness doesn’t always include a college education or a six figure salary.Greatness means giving of yourself and loving on others. What is your passion? What makes you feel alive? Do that! Others may think you’ve lost your mind and are wasting your talents, but if you feel you’re supposed to, then do. I will be your greatest cheerleader.

    I want you to read great books. And here’s the catch no English teacher wants to admit… What is great to you might be horrible to me. And that’s ok. Reading takes you where you can’t always go yourself, and it teaches you what you didn’t know you didn’t know. Yesterday a book took me to South Sudan where children were kidnapped and forced to become soldiers. The book wasn’t – and won’t become – a classic, and it’s not on any approved reading list. Who cares? Read what you like and toss what you don’t. Life’s too short to read terrible books.

    I want you to learn who you are. You’ll experiment, and you’ll learn in stages. But don’t pretend and don’t force it. You were made a certain way and for a certain reason. Do everything in your power to discover who and what that is.

    I want so much for you, and so little of it has to do with my class. I want you to truly live, not just exist, and I want you to thrive in your own unique way. I want you to feel joy and to bring it to others. I want you, 30 years from now, to know that you are doing exactly what you are meant to do. I want you to be a great you – even if you don’t make an A in my class.

  • What No One Can Tell You About Being a Parent

    I glanced in the rearview mirror today, and her shining eyes in the very back seat brought a lump into my throat.
    She is six now, heading to 1st grade, and I don’t know where the time went. I swear it was just yesterday that I brought her home in a preemie outfit that swallowed her whole.

    In the seat in front of her, big brother sits, his face losing baby fat as fast as he’s losing baby teeth.

    They are both big kids now, riding big kid bikes and reading chapter books, leaving me to shake my head and ask the age-old question, “Where did the time go?”

    It’s just one of the things no one can make you understand about being a parent.

    They can’t explain to you that seeing your wrinkly, red newborn for the first time will make your heart feel as if it will explode from the love that suddenly appears.

    They don’t tell you that the second time is just like the first.

    They can’t tell you that you will panic the first time they sleep through the night, though you begged for it for weeks (or months – they don’t tell you that either).

    No one tells you how bad explosive diapers and projectile vomiting really are, and they don’t explain that it is physically possible for your son to pee in his own mouth.

    They don’t tell you that the tooth fairy will need to come on the night you have no cash, and you’ll be forced to ask Grandma to deliver a dollar on the sly.

    They don’t tell you that you become a raging bull the first time someone is unkind to your child, and that you will have zero hesitation about putting some hurting on a three year old.

    No one prepares you for the agony that is potty training.

    They don’t tell you that you will memorize, verbatim, Good Night Moon and Elmo Loves You and Green Eggs and Ham and Little Toot (not kidding here – it’s about Toot the Tugboat) and that when you lie down at night you will hear, looping in your head, the theme song from Little Einsteins.

    No one tells you that when your son is seven you will drive by the park that was his childhood, and you’ll cry for the day when he and his first friend pretended to be monsters.

    You cannot be prepared for walking your baby into school and facing the reality that you have to leave without him.
    You would never believe that you’ll have to scoop poop out of the tub with a plastic cup.

    They don’t tell you that you will drive 30 minutes out of your way to go back and retrieve a smelly, tattered stuffed animal that is your only hope for a peaceful night.

    You can’t guess that you will stand in the doorway of her room, watching her chest rise and fall, wondering what you did to deserve that child.

    No one tells you that years after diapers are only a memory, you will still have a brand preference that you purchase for baby showers, and that your preferences are gender-specific.

    No one tells you that you will repeatedly inhale the scent of your baby’s head, closing your eyes as you try to memorize it.

    You don’t know that seeing his newborn rompers will bring tears to your eyes and that you will hug them to your chest to remember how small he once was.

    You can’t imagine that the baby you once carried will turn into a hilarious, vivacious child whose company you prefer over that of some adults.

    They don’t tell you that you will second-guess yourself daily, replaying decisions you made and words you said and time you spent.

    You can’t know that the home-movies you are making now will rip your heart to shreds in a few years as you laugh and cry and marvel at the changes in your children.

    You don’t know, but you can’t know.
    They don’t explain, but they can’t explain.

    Being a parent is simply an indescribable experience – we have a picture of what it will be, and the vast majority of the time, we are wrong. But we are wrong because we underestimate it. We simply have not learned how deep love can go, and we cannot know how we will transform.

    The birth of a child also brings the birth of a new person – a parent.

  • Why Teaching Is So Doggone Hard

    It’s almost here, fellow teachers. 
     
    Like it or not, we will wake up Monday morning much earlier than our summer sleep schedules are accustomed to, and we will walk back into the buildings we simultaneously love and fear. The newly waxed floors will look foreign without any tossed away papers and all used-up pencils, and the bare bulletin boards will mock us as we remember the cute ideas we saw on Pinterest.
     
    We will make multiple trips from the car to our rooms, carrying bags filled with the magic we are convinced will make this year the best. We will stand surveying our rooms, hands on hips, as we envision a space that inspires and welcomes.
     
    The plans will have to wait, though, as we sit through multiple meetings where we team-build and common-core learn and technology policy question… And don’t forget lunch-plans make, as this is the week – the only week – where we are allowed to leave for the sacred lunch.
     
    Our non-teacher friends will roll eyes as we mention ‘heading back to work,’ and they will make snide comments about us having the whole summer off. We will roll eyes back as we mutter, “You just don’t get it.” And, bless their hearts, they don’t.
     
    They don’t get that being a teacher – a good teacher – is like being a performer onstage for eight hours a day, five days a week who has also had to write the script, create the scenery, memorize each role, and research the backstory. 
     
    It means dealing with hecklers in the crowd whom security cannot remove and then being responsible for said hecklers mastering the nuances of the play she is performing. It means changing the script in the middle of the performance because audience members are nodding off, and doing so with zero funds because she spent her allocation stocking up on Kleenex and hand sanitizer.
     
    It means not being able to go to the bathroom when she needs to, but racing to beat the other teachers before the tardy bell rings. 
     
    It means having her performance observed and critiqued by those who only see just a part, and receiving blame if the audience doesn’t rush to join her onstage.
     
    It means so much more than any non-teacher can understand.
     
    It means feeling like you have more children than you actually delivered, crying at their troubles and celebrating their victories. It means noticing the child who has no brand new supplies and no way of getting what the list requires. 
     
    It means sinking into your chair as the final bell rings, asking yourself if you can make it another day. It means arriving earlier the next morning to ensure that you can.
     
    Being a teacher is hard. But it’s good.
     
    Do me a favor, ok? If you’re not a teacher and you see one in the next few days wearing a look of panic – tell her thank you. Tell her thanks for cramming 365 days worth of knowledge into 180 (fewer if you count the interruptions and standardized tests). Say thank you for her being “on” every day when she steps in front of your child, leaving her own exhaustion, troubles, and worries at home. Let her know you appreciate the fact that she cannot just leave her work at work, but brings it (and thoughts of your child) home with her.

    I guarantee she doesn’t hear ‘thanks’ nearly enough. You might even make her cry. 

  • They Prayed for Paint

    Pastor José’s eyes were rimmed with red as we gathered at the front of his church. We had just finished painting his house, transforming a drab concrete building into a vibrant standout in his barrio.

    “My family – we gather every morning to pray, and we have prayed for a year to have our house painted,” he explained softly as the translator relayed his words.
    I dropped my eyes to the dirt floor of the “Jesus is the Way to Heaven” Church. I have just repainted my entire house, and prayer was not part of the process. The money was in the bank, the desire was in my heart, and that’s all there was to it. I wanted to, so I did.
    The humble pastor went on to tell us how his family has prayed for paint, but God did not allow for it until now. “Many people in my country think pastors are becoming wealthy,” he said. I wondered what they would think of American celebrity pastors as wealthy as our athletes.
    He told us of how just that morning God revealed to him a lesson about protection. He said that God kept them from having the money to paint it themselves so that others would see the house after our team left and know that the money came from God, not their own greed.
    The paint provided a beautiful lesson as well as a beautiful house.

    We all bowed as José began to pray, the Spanish flowing from his mouth in the most heartfelt prayer I have heard. His words and the translator’s overlapped, and though I missed some words, I did not miss the Spirit. 
    The sanctuary had no air conditioning and only dirt for a floor. There were no projectors showing catchy videos, no sound system blaring latest hits. No pens advertising fancy logos, no worship guides to fill in.
    But make no mistake – it was worship. 
    I wiped away the tears that would not stop as I thought of how wrong I – we – have been. Pastor José prayed for a year for what we deem simple, and I give up after mere days on what is important.
    As the prayer grew in intensity, the wind began to blow. The yellow plastic decorations that hung above our heads began to rustle, and I knew it was the Holy Spirit in our midst. I cannot explain what I felt as we gathered in that place, but I know that it is a place God has blessed.

    Pastor José’s church continues to grow, with people bypassing other houses of worship to attend there. Their previous location was destroyed by a drunk man wielding a machete, but the congregation now knows that God allowed its destruction for a purpose. Doesn’t He always?
    I did not want that moment to end, a moment when the Lord’s glory came down and was palpable, but as all such moments in this life must, it did. We wiped away tears, hugged the gentle pastor, and assured him of our continued support.
    Friday, we will leave this place, having painted some walls and played with some children. We will return to our state of the art church facility and our own luxurious homes. We will reenter our daily lives, demands returning and needs pressing.
    But we will not forget. We will remember standing in the shadow of a volcano where the Spirit erupted, touching our hearts and reminding us of His love.

  • Poverty Is Not Just Physical

    Her brown eyes followed our van as we passed her on the bumpy road, looking through the windows at a dozen Americans conspicuously out of place in her neighborhood. We had come to bless a local Nicaraguan pastor by painting his house, a luxury for a man whose family can easily be without food. 
    She spoke nothing to us, but I wondered what her words would be. What stories could she tell of living in such a place? Homes walled with black plastic sheeting; floors nothing but dirt. Garbage littering what passes for a road, leading to a neighborhood where children wander unattended and adults loiter because there is no job to be worked.
    I saw her for just seconds, but her face is on my mind tonight.
    She could be me.
    My natural reaction on any trip away from America is to pity the inhabitants of wherever I travel.
    “They just don’t know what they’re missing,” I think.
    Which is what? More electronic devices than there are people in the house? So much food that I toss expired bags full? So many channels to watch that I never have to converse with the people I love most?
    Maybe I’m the one who is missing something.
    Poverty is not just a physical condition. So many of us – rich Americans who are spoiled more than we know – are really the poorest of the poor. We lack contentment in our everyday and peace in our condition because we know too much. We know that the world is full of more – more to do, more to buy, more to see. 
    But now as the rain is pouring and I am reflecting, I wonder… Does it matter that there’s more? If peace is possible in the scarcity, why do we convince ourselves it’s only found in the plenty?
    If I have learned anything from the people of Nicaragua on my trips to their country, it is this: possessions are not the purpose, and poverty is not just physical. I have walked into houses with no beds – no beds! – and the inhabitants smile and hug. I have played with children who don’t have playrooms mimicking Toys R Us, and they are exuberant. I have seen cardboard as the only barrier from the elements, and the families are joyous.
    I want that to be me.
    That should be all believers.
    Christians are not immune from the traps of the world – more, better, now. We spend on what doesn’t last and invest in what is fleeting. We store up here and neglect what is to come.
    Remind us that we are your hands and feet, Lord, and that unless we serve, people hurt. People starve. People die without You.
    You have commanded us to love, but we choose when and where.
    You have commanded us to give, but we selfishly hold some back.
    You have commanded us to go, but we make excuses and sit in comfort.
    Forgive us, Lord.
    Create in us a new heart, and renew a steadfast spirit within.

  • On a Plane Again

    Tomorrow is a big deal for the new Mrs. Scott. From this point forward, it shall be known as ‘the day Jennie got on a plane on purpose for the second time in one summer.’

    Kind of catchy.

    The first time was to catch a cruise ship out of Puerto Rico for a luxurious honeymoon where someone else turned down my bed and made cute animals out of my towels. Sunday is to go to Nicaragua for a mission trip where bats are said to fly through the house I’ll be staying in and where I will have zero access to a hair dryer or flat iron.

    So the trips will be slightly different.

    Other than the plane ride, I’m so excited I can’t stand it. If I could just be beamed up like Scotty, all would be well. However, beaming up technology hasn’t made its way to me yet, so I’ll be forced to zoom through the air at 500 miles an hour in an aluminum can.

    Can I get some pills, please?

    Suffice it to say I’m not the best traveler. I have what might be called in some circles a slight case of the panic attacks. My poor new husband still bears the claw marks on his arm from our previous flight. If I could just be the one flying the plane, I think I’d be ok. It’s a control issue. And maybe a “we’re 30,000 feet above the ground” issue.

    But whatever.

    Once we arrive in Nicaragua, we’ll be working with some local missionaries to paint, build structures, love on some kids… Anything that needs to be done.

    All joking aside, this country is one of my favorite places on earth. I’ve been there once before, and it’s where I began falling in love with Mr. Scott. Literally a life-changing experience. I’m praying that the next week will be equally as life-changing. There’s just something about getting away from the convenience of my everyday life to remind me of the needs that people face constantly. (And I’m not just talking about the needs of the Nicaraguans. I’m talking about the needs I have to get over my own selfishness, act like Jesus, and share the gospel).

    Next week as internet access allows, I’ll be sharing what our team is doing and how God is working. We appreciate your prayers!

    Now to go find those pills…

  • Elephant Ears

    More than anything in this world, I want my children to seek the Lord. Yes, I’d like for them to do well in school and to choose career paths that are fulfilling and noble. I pray that they’ll each find a lifelong love, and that their addresses will be no farther than a stone’s throw away. I desire for them to know who they really are deep inside and what the passions that consume them are for. As all moms do, I have a laundry list of things I’d love for my children to experience. But more than all that, I just want them to know and love Jesus. The deepest desire of my heart is for them to desire Him.

    I want them to know what I know of His goodness, trust as I do in His provision, believe as I’ve come to in His faithfulness. 
    I want them to revel in His Word, be consumed by His work, and devote themselves in His service. 
    A struggle for me has been how to ‘train up a child in the way he should go’ while still ensuring that the choice is his. I don’t want my children simply to follow in my religion; I want them to fall in love with my Savior. 
    I want them to wrestle and search, question and think. 
    I want their allegiance to Christ to be of their own accord. How to lead them to Jesus without commanding it of them has been, and I’m sure will continue to be, a delicate balance. 
    So I speak of Him as if He is a tangible part of my life, sharing with them what I see of His works. I pray to Him in front of them, giving them a picture of what a life following Him looks like. I tell them when I’ve messed up, and let them see that I’m not perfect. They see me reading my Bible and journaling my thoughts, and we have conversations about questions they have. 
    We were driving home one night, and somehow began talking about prayer. I was explaining that praying is just as much about listening to what the Holy Spirit says as it is about talking, and my sweet, precocious daughter chimed in.
     “Mommy, it’s kind of hard to hear Jesus, but I bet elephants can because they have really big ears.”
    Haven’t you ever wanted really big elephant ears? Haven’t you ever needed to hear Jesus but struggled to do so? 
    I explained to Katherine – and reminded myself – that in times when it’s hard to hear the still, small voice, we have to remember the words He’s already said. 
    We have to know the truth of Scripture in the times when  His voice is silent. 
    We have to rely on who He is when we can’t hear what He says.
    One day, when they’re old enough, I will share with them this journey and the lessons it has taught me. In the meantime, however, I will simply share the journey’s Jesus and the love that He has shown. I will tell of His goodness and ever-present help. 
    I will teach them His Word, and pray that they’ll have elephant ears. 

  • On College Football, Tweets, and God

    I may be a girly-girl, but I definitely love me some college football. While the Clemson Tigers are my personal favorite, I enjoy watching any team play. 


    I follow several players on Twitter, and a few of them tweeted the same thing following their teams’ victories – “God is good!” From what I know of these young men, they really do seek to follow the Lord, but I wonder… Would their tweets have been the same if their teams had lost?

    We hear so often that ‘God is good’ when people are on their personal mountaintops, experiencing favor and blessing, lacking no good thing. But when life is hard, a barren wasteland of hardship and confusion, that statement is not as often proclaimed. Why? Do we associate our ease with God’s goodness? Tangible blessing with love?

    I agree wholeheartedly that God is good, but it isn’t in victory that I’ve learned it. I came to believe in His goodness – His eternal, unchanging, omnipresent good – in my personal time of defeat, a time when no good was being poured out on me. I saw His good when all else was bad.

    What do we even mean when we say He is good? You might disagree, but I think most people mean ‘He gives good things’ or ‘I feel good.’

    We say that our children are ‘good’ when they are well-behaved, associating their goodness with their behavior, and I think we subconsciously do the same with our God. If He behaves in a way that seems to benefit us, then we deem Him good. If we feel slighted or hurt by His actions (or allowances), then we question His goodness.

    Unlike our children, however, God does not change. He is the same “yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Scripture tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and if that was true thousands of years ago when it was written, then it is true today.

    Because God IS love, everything that God allows comes FROM love.

    Everything comes from love – even what momentarily seems bad. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Troubles come – and will come – but they are not an indication that God is not good. They are an indication that He desires eternal glory for us! 

    The bad of this life is God’s good in disguise.

  • Who Doubts Teachers Now? My Thoughts on Sandy Hook

    Like you, I am still in shock. Twenty babies were gunned down in their bright, cheerful school, innocently learning and unsuspecting of what was to come. 

    Their faces haunt my thoughts, come to mind when I see the smiles of my own two children. I think of their parents’ grief and I weep, crying for their pain that I can never begin to understand. I see my children’s stockings and think of 20 that will never be filled. I watch my children’s chests rise and fall in peaceful sleep and know that there are parents who would give everything they have for just one more night.

    It doesn’t make any sense.

    How can a mother move forward when the children who grew within her will grow no more? How does a daddy walk past the bedroom where the child will never need tucking in again? How?

    It is more wrong than my words can express.

    In the midst of the sadness and need for understanding, one ray of light has shone. The teachers. We have all heard the accounts of their bravery and heroics, reading Christmas stories to innocents as bullets rained right outside. Finding crayons and coloring sheets to distract little ones while evil tried to overtake. Stepping between gunman and children, sacrificing self. The teachers were heroes.

    The teachers are heroes.

    I am in no way trying to glorify mere people, but I am so proud of my fellow educators that I have to speak out. What these teachers did Friday is what teachers do every day. We give what is ours. For some of these in Sandy Hook, that gift was their lives.

    Every day in a battle that can feel as if we are losing, teachers give. We give hours that are unpaid, money that is never reimbursed, encouragement that is unwelcome. We give suggestions that are unheeded, time that we don’t have, lessons that we learned the hard way. We receive no recognition, are talked poorly about by many, and are questioned as if we’re not professionals.

    We are undeterred, though, because there is something more important than the hours, the time, the disrespect.

    The children.
    We become surrogate parents to our students, calling them “our kids,” seeing them not just as pupils but as our own dearly loved. They get on our last nerves, trying our patience, but come hell or high water, we will not let them go.  

    On a normal day, we are determined not to let them fail. We insist they complete lessons, participate in class, persevere through hard lessons. We tolerate no unkindness, teach them to encourage each other, help them to see that knowledge is powerful.

    We stand between them and this evil world that wants them. We stand between them and complacency. We stand between them and the easy way out.

    In Sandy Hook on a day that was not normal, the teachers stood between them and the bullets.

    I have heard reports that one teacher said, “I wanted my voice to be the last thing they heard, not the gunshots…” This shows the heart of a teacher – protect the children, whatever the cost.

    To those who question the value of public schools, the professionalism of its teachers – may you all, right now, know that every teacher I have met would do exactly what those in Connecticut did. We would lay down our lives for your children. We lay down our lives for them daily in our classrooms, and if, God, forbid, we were ever faced with a gun, we would still willingly give what is ours for them.