Kathryn Lindholm-Leary
Child & Adolescent Development,
San Jose State University
God is my colleague.
It’s taken me most of my career to realize that God knows more about my fields of teaching and research than I do, AND that He is more than willing to help me with the specifics.
He can help me because not only does He understand my field of study, He designed it.
Nothing Beyond His Scope
Think about what that means; no research idea or class assignment or test question or student problem is ever beyond His scope of skills and talents – or interest!
I used to ask God to bless my research and teaching, to help me get tenure or a project funded, or to help me get my work done – and He did! More recently, I have realized that God can help me think through specific research issues I’m struggling with, or give me insight into more creative ideas, or even help me come up with the right word when I’m writing an article – just like a helpful colleague or mentor.
My area of work involves helping school administrators and teachers develop programs that successfully educate students who come to school speaking a language other than English. In the overall scheme of the universe, this issue seems like it would be rather trivial to God—the business of teaching a particular group of children.
Yet, God has shown me that He is very interested in this area in which I work – children, children and families in poverty, people who feel and are often treated as if they are unimportant, parents struggling to instill values in children with whom they can no longer communicate.
God loves children. These are God’s people and he loves them and wants a relationship with them. He wants these children to be valued; He wants them to learn how to read so they can read His Word and experience a fuller life.
My Professional Mentor
As I’ve invited Him to serve as my professional mentor and colleague, my work has extended into some new areas that are far more interesting and exciting than I could have imagined a few years ago.
Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed and unprepared, but God is not. Sometimes I stop and realize that a set of skills I was developing for a totally unrelated area in my teaching (e.g., online teaching) now serve me well in a new professional foray (e.g., developing training websites for administrators and teachers).
And I realize all over again that God is so organized, so knowledgeable, so interested and so loving that He really does work all things together for good.
© 2006 Kathryn Lindholm-Leary