Every woman in my family for seven generations on both sides has been a teacher. Teaching is in my blood. It is my passion and my gift. So it was quite natural that when I entered college, I pursued a degree in Secondary English Education. And I was mostly happy about it...Shakespeare and Chaucer and Dickens are interesting reading. But the first day of classes my junior year, something went drastically wrong. As I sat through each class that day listening to our goals and projects for the semester, I noticed a very obvious difference between my classmates and me. Whereas they were all chomping at the bit to get into their student teaching classrooms, I was dreading every assignment. Instead of listening to my professors' first-day-of-school speeches, my mind was racing to figure out a way to get out of this major, and fast!

It was, I admit, a rather sudden and abrupt about-turn, and one which my parents reacted to with much grace and prayer. But by the end of that day, I was enrolled as a Biblical Studies major in the Religion and Philosophy Department. After I had settled into my new major, I discovered that my frantic change that first day of school was a very sudden response to the subtle promptings of the Holy Spirit I had been ignoring for many months. My fears about disappointing my mother by stepping out of her footprints had kept me from paying serious attention to the footprints of my Master. But on that hectic day my junior year of college, my terrified obedience led me into such sweet rest, I cannot doubt the Lord's hand on my life.

I have now graduated from college and seminary, and am preparing for a Doctorate in Old Testament. I still intend to teach, but the subject of my teaching is now a literature of much more eternal significance than Shakespeare and Milton and Chaucer. The Lord has bestowed upon me a passion for training pastors and church leaders in the beauties of His Word. Through His leading, I have been given many special opportunities even as a fledgling Bible scholar. My worry about denying the teaching heritage of my foremothers was futile, because as we often discover, God's gracious will usually overflows our finite expectations.

I am a teacher, but now I am a teacher of the Word, and nothing could be more satisfying to my soul than that! Praise the Lord for His sometimes frightening and astonishing intervention in our lives.