Stacey Reed - Morning Musings: Weekly Encouragement for the Educators Soul

An awesome piece of work! If youre an educator who wants to transform your instructional practice and inspire the population of students you serve, then Morning Musings is for you.

Stacey Reed is a highly-effective educator, who is extremely cognizant of the powerful role educators play in the lives of their students. When you invite the Holy Spirit into your professional world, you will discover that prayer and faith go a long way to restoring joy, peace, and hope into your heart.

This book wonderfully serves educators on any level in any genre of education, as a daily reminder that persistence, diligence, discernment, and patience are all needed to do your work wellwhich only comes from above!

Dr. Lance r. Jeter

Chief Prelate

Shekinah Fellowship of Churches

Retired Superintendent of Schools, New York

Sasha Jeter

Certified Educator, New York

I have known Stacey for some time. She has a combination of three attributes and experiences that make her perfect to author such a book. She has a strong, unwavering faith; she has an outstanding record as an educator; and she relates well to students, and their needs.

Austin A. Adams

Former Executive Vice President

JPMorgan Chase

Stacey is an experienced educator with knowledge, faith, and purpose. Her writing illustrates the best of each attribute and captures the readers attention with ease. This text will quickly become an often read go to resource for educators.

Tondaleya Green-Jackson

Certified Educator

South Carolina

2019 Stacey D. Reed

Morning Musings

Weekly Encouragement for the Educators Soul

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Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906691

ISBN 978-1-400326846 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-400326853 (eBook)

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

TO MASTER JESUS.

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

THE ONE TRUE REDEMPTION FOR US ALL.

TO EDUCATORS WHO INSTRUCT, COUNSEL,
AND LOVE TOOTHIS ONE IS FOR YOU.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should
go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Psalm 32:8, NIV

I fondly recall when I was a young boy riding to church every Sunday with my daddy and sister on my dads bicycle. Daddy gave us four cents each; two cents for church and two cents to buy some candy. I enjoyed going to church and eating candy and sometimes imagined being the preacher or the pastor of that church. Ever since I could remember myself, I attended church weekly. However, if you lived in my parents home, attending church was not an option.

In 1960, I became a licensed minister and in 1961, an ordained minister. I served as a pastor of four churches for 55 years. My tenure as a teacher started shortly after college graduation in 1946.

I was hired as a seventh-grade math teacher at Howard School, from where I graduated, in my hometown of Georgetown, South Carolina. I remember so well that we had large classes, but discipline was not a problem. There were no computers, so our records and data were manually completed, which was very time-consuming and resulted in many errors. We had limited resources to use in the classroom. Several teachers did not have a vehicle, so they walked to school. The salary for teachers was low. Even so, the teachers always tried to help the students achieve and remain in school, but certainly not of their own volition.

During the 1940s, prayer was allowed in schools. Most of the teachers, back then, called on God for guidance and compassion. We started the day with a prayer and reading of the scripture. Sometimes, we had a closing prayer at the end of the day. Meditating and praying became a natural habit. Teachers would often tell their success stories about Gods blessings. These conversations of success were encouraging and inspiring to the new teachers and especially to me.

Stacey reminds educators that, although prayer has been taken out of some schools, prayer does not have to be extracted from their lives. They too can experience the success of Gods blessings in their classroom even today.

There are many more amenities (technology, diverse teaching and learning materials, service-learning opportunities, smaller class sizes) available for todays classroom. Yet, educators still have numerous challenges today including discipline, mass school killings, and lack of parental involvement, that are overwhelming resulting in stress, teacher burnout, and a mass exodus from the teaching profession.

Therefore, educators should always pray for themselves. Meditating and praying can change educators perspective. Executing both give educators the eyes and mindset of Christ and the heart they need to work with students.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Js. 4:10, kjv

Educators, perfect attendance, extracurricular activities, GPA, well written lesson plans and technology in your classroom do not protect you from the hand of the enemy, but prayer does. All educators, but especially first year educators, need the strength, wisdom, protection, and understanding that comes only from God. When educators get connected, they become more humble, flexible, patient, and open to the Spirit of God. This I have witnessed.

So, educators, cheer up, dry your tears, look up, and let God use you.

Stacey has been an educator in higher education for more than a decade. For each weeks musing in this book, she shares revelatory teaching and application from her time in meditative prayer. Gleaned from her teaching and spiritual experiences, each weeks musing helps educators teach with the purest of heart, mind, and intention. Meditating on them allows teachers to get in the right frame of mind to communicate with our Lord before their teaching day begins.