Dear Miss Smith,

You had me in your classroom for one year. All I remember you teaching me was that I was stupid.

You called me 'The Daydreamer" and would stop class to pointedly ask me sarcastically if I was daydreaming again.
I was a little girl. I believed in dragons and fairies and Aslan. I believed the whole earth and everything in it was alive. I would whisper to rocks and leaves as I passed by.
I was a little girl and I was a daydreamer. I could travel to other worlds from that classroom desk and to other places in this world. I made up the most fantastic stories. I loved to escape you, the fear of you.
I was a little girl and I was discovering love for the first time. My very first crush. I would sneak glances at him across the room, willing him to notice me.
I was a little girl and I was vulnerable. I knew you knew what you were talking about and I must be stupid. I have a very vivid, terrible memory when I suddenly realised just how stupid I must be. You were looming over me as you made me count my folders. I was so nervous with you standing there that I counted nine when there was ten.
"You can't even count to ten?" you asked, exasperated with me. I cowered and didn't respond.
My heart screamed in protest. "Yes I can!" I yelled inside. "I am good at counting. I can also write stories better than anyone else in this room if you gave me the chance, if you encouraged me. But I am being taught to mute my imagination."
Creativity is not as important as sitting still and paying attention, being a good girl and answering the question right. You taught me that.

Do you remember dumping me on to another adult for a 'special reading class'? I was special enough to leave the others and go with him to a small office. I remember those times of freedom from the fear you instilled in me. He was kind and funny and under his tutelage I learned. But then I would be sent back into your classroom and once again into silence.

I am shaking as I type this. I am not writing this letter for you. This is for me. I need to leave these things on the page. I need to tell myself that you were wrong. I am not stupid.

I had many amazing teachers growing up, but your voice is the loudest. It is you I hear late at night. You I hear as I write. You I hear when I'm struggling to speak and can't get the words out. What you instilled in me has affected every area of my life, my marriage, my faith. By teaching me it was wrong to use my imagination, you taught me that I was wrong, that I was made wrong.

You were wrong Miss Smith.

I am a woman and I am a creator.
I am a woman and will no longer be afraid to create.
I am a woman and I will no longer be afraid to speak.
I am a woman with presence.
I am a daughter of the King who made me.

And I will no longer let you into my head. I forgive you Miss Smith. For both of our sakes.

The Proud Daydreamer

I'm Here

Sometimes I think late at night. Or early in the morning. When I was younger and Dad knew I inherited his insomnia, he would tell me to remember that if I was awake, he was awake and God was awake too. It was like a party.
So when my Husband is doing that deep breathing thing, I'm actually having a party with God.

It's times like these when I realise I let God become a stranger today. I didn't tell God that I'm here on July 27th. For the past busy month I've been saying "I'm here." to God. Then I realise that I'm here, and He's here, and we're here together, doing whatever I'm doing, together.

I'm here, with Him when I'm singing next to my guitar playing Husband at a youth camp.
I'm here, with Him when we're living at a dairy farm for a week and there's a scary doll downstairs that is stopping me from retrieving the frozen chicken.
I'm here, with Him with I'm listening to my husband vomit for the 6th time that day.
I'm here, with Him when I'm driving my Husband to the hospital where they inject him with 4 litres of fluid.
I'm here, with Him when our trip home is delayed for three days.
I'm here, with Him when His unexplainable peace seeps through my tortured thoughts of cancer and all things evil.
I'm here, with Him when we arrive in Three Hills with essays to write and thank you cards to mail and people to see and a life to pack and health to figure out.
I'm here, with Him when we get the call that it was food poisoning, and he'll be fine.
I'm here, with Him when my Husband is breathing deep and it's morning but I'm awake. Having a party.

This post might not be too profound, I am sleep deprived after all. This is my life, the mundane life of Rachael Culp world traveller extraordinaire (I tried to make things mundane Rebecka Boys, but then I go and throw words like extraordinaire in the mix and I fail miserably).

I am surrounded by all of my earthly possessions that are packed up and against walls. We are leaving in a week and a half and I may never see them again, but I could care less! Are you trapped by your possessions?
God is here with me, and I am with Him. God is there in Germany too and will be going there with me, and I with Him. Never one without the other. What a beautiful-far-from-mundane-crazy-truth- reality that is!
My prayer reader, is that YOU are able to practise this small Spiritual Discipline of being here with God, wherever, whenever. Now go have a party!