{"id":8169,"date":"2012-04-14T14:42:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8169"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"the-blessing-of-a-head-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8169","title":{"rendered":"The Blessing of a Head Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I worked the day job only two mornings this past week.\u00a0 We had Monday off as an unused snow day, I worked Tuesday morning, left to attend a pastor’s conference in Louisville, returned late Thursday night, worked Friday morning and then left school for a funeral.Travis, a dear brother in Christ, had recommended this conference to me a few weeks ago.\u00a0 My concern was missing school time: I had just one last personal day I could take.\u00a0 On the other hand, I still had something like 16 sick days built up!\u00a0 I asked around school and folks told me that it was no big deal to take sick days as personal days – it happens all the time.\u00a0 Still, my conscience kept asking, “How can you LIE in order to attend a Christian event??”\u00a0 I hesitated until the last moment that I could register and then felt that – even with the conscience issue – it was something I was meant to be a part of.\u00a0 I just trusted that something would work out in a way that wouldn’t compromise integrity.As a side note, I am not one of those teachers who just asks a sub to plug in a random video to pass the time.\u00a0 It actually took many hours of work on my part to leave meaningful lesson plans for the sub and my students accomplished important work throughout the week even without me there.Even so, it didn’t seem RIGHT to claim a conference as sick days.\u00a0 So praise God for the head cold I got last weekend!\u00a0 I can honestly say that I could have -in good conscience – gladly taken every day off this past week from school to sleep in and recover.\u00a0 While at the conference, I had the chance to sleep in a bit and to grab a nap in the afternoons (when I would have normally been in class).\u00a0 And even though I was feeling pretty miserable physically, spiritually I was alert and being fed.\u00a0 I can’t wait to share some of the things the Lord taught me through those three days.The cold actually continued through Thursday and then dissipated.\u00a0 That meant that I could still claim Friday afternoon as a half personal day in order to go to the funeral of a young man from our former church in Indy.\u00a0 (It was the most memorable funeral I have ever attended.\u00a0 It was a real paradox:\u00a0 sad, hilarious, inspiring, embarrassing, and motivating.)So what do you think?\u00a0 Am I on target in my interpretation of the week’s events and the head cold?\u00a0\u00a0 There\u00a0was a time when I might have\u00a0read the head cold as God’s punishment\u00a0towards me, but now it seems like Grace.\u00a0\u00a0He knows I\u00a0NEEDED it.\u00a0In all honesty, the other great thing about following through with attending the conference is that I came back inspired\u00a0in\u00a0my current role as teacher\u00a0and seeing\u00a0my students\u00a0in a different (and far better) light.\u00a0 Instead of counting my absence as sick days, maybe\u00a0I could charge the cost of the conference to the school as “professional development”!\u00a0 And get reimbursement for mileage and hotel costs!\u00a0 ;-)By the way, the conference organizers promised to put videos from the keynote speakers on their website and they have.\u00a0 The conference was called “Together for the Gospel” and the website is right here<\/a>.\u00a0 Some of the most inspired preaching I’ve heard in a long time. (No offense meant, Pastor Chuck!!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I worked the day job only two mornings this past week.\u00a0 We had Monday off as an unused snow day, I worked Tuesday morning, left to attend a pastor’s conference in Louisville, returned late Thursday night, worked Friday morning and then left school for a funeral.Travis, a dear brother in Christ, had recommended this conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8170,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions\/8170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}