Today part of my introduction to my math students was "I'm a former international mechanical engineer, landscape designer, entrepreneur a few different times, tried to become a math teacher during the California budget crisis, but that didn't work out for me, so I wrote this book, 'The Romance of Kilimanjaro.' The moral of the story is that we may get focused on one path and our real path may be more awesome like writing a book." My canned introduction has new meaning for me now that I've uncovered that I've been held back from a math teaching position due to my most trusted job reference giving me a bad reference all these years.
I suppose that God put her into my life to make me finish my first book. I often told this reference that I felt like I was a new version of "Jonah and the Whale"---I won't get a math teaching position until I finish my first book. That mission is accomplished. I'm actually very close to finishing my second manuscript now.
Memories of she and I going to prayer meetings at the high school kept coming back. I remember how I didn't understand her prayer for me once, "May Isolde find peace that her dream of being a math teacher may be coming to an end." I wasn't giving up on that dream! I was making the best use of all my free time by writing books and staying in shape. I had every intention of continuing my pursuit of being a math teacher.
At Ash Wednesday service my choir friends asked me if I was going to confront this Christian lady. I thought about all the people who needed my time and all the positive things that I could do with my time. "No. I gave her up to God. He always does a great job taking care of these issues for me. I also took her and her whole school district off my edjoin pages and added a new school district and new job references for me."
Being a graduate of Celebrate Recovery, I also thought about my mistakes that I made while teaching in my early years. I had a part in my bad job reference. She knew the mistakes that I made as a new teacher. I didn't want her to lie to a potential employer, but she could have been merciful towards me. She just never forgave me for these nascent teaching errors, nor allowed herself to see how I grew into a better teacher by making those mistakes. As a friend, she could have told me not to use her as a reference. She chose to keep me in the dark as to her duplicitous behavior, though. May God be merciful upon her.
Fortunately, the five new math teaching references that I wrestled up in fifteen minutes came through for me. They made sure that my dream of being a math teacher was left intact. They believe in my abilities to teach math after training me with their lesson plans and classroom procedures. Now I have an unprecedented third job interview scheduled for tomorrow.
Thank you God for all the love that you've shown me while I've dealt with this unforeseen bad job reference!
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