First day of school...

We started a new school year today. I'm sure most of you have already gone through this. If you haven't I'm sure you are going to go through it soon. The excitement level varies, I'm sure, with every child, but I was struck at how my own children have changed through the years.

I called up to wake up my oldest child first. His room is closest to mine and I called him on my way to wake up the others. He's 14 now. He's a Freshman in high school. It's a big year for him. He mumbled something after I called him a couple of times and I thought he might be awake. I moved on.

Middle child isn't that difficult. I call to him and he answers. He sits up in bed. I'm pretty sure I see him lay back down out of the corner of my eye before I walk by, but I'm re-insured by his exuberance (compared to the other one) and I move on to the next child.

Youngest child is easy. I gently say her name. I whisper "first day of school" into her sweet tiny ear and she gasps before she opens her eyes. As her eyes pop open she smiles and says "I can't believe it's time for first grade!" She continues as she stands up on the bed, "I'm so excited about the first day of school! I love school! I can't wait to see my teacher!" She hops on the bed. "Mama, get my stripey dress and my pink flip flops! You have to spray my hair. Mama, I can't believe school starts to day. Mama, I'm soooo excited about first grade!" She follows me back down to the kitchen and never stops her monologue.

On the way we call to the Middle Child. "I'm up." is the reply and he seems to be in the process. His legs are on the side of his bed and he is contemplating his shorts.

Next stop is the Oldest... "Wake up!" No answer. "Wake UPPPP!" Nothing. "Mama, do you need me to go jump on him? I'll get him up. I can't believe he's not excited. I'm excited. I can't wait to see my teacher. I can't wait to see my friends. Are you sure you don't want me to--" I interrupt, "WAKE UP! DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE! DON'T YOU MAKE US LATE ON THE FIRST DAY BACK!"

Youngest is quiet long enough after my outburst that I hear a thud-a -thump-thud-thump from the upstairs room. This usually means he has emerged from bed or he has fallen out one or the other. I hear him trudge down the stairs to brush his teeth and I am reassured that, whatever the case, he will survive.

We make it to school on time; earlier than I had imagined possible. They all leave me to go to their class rooms. One more year off to a typical start. I have my pictures to prove it to all my friends. I got all three there and they even smiled for a picture.

On the way home I got to thinking about their individual reactions today. It occurred to me that the oldest, the one that had been doing it the longest, was the hardest to get excited this morning. My middle child was reluctant, but he didn't take much prodding to get up and dressed. The youngest was excited. She was ready. She was eager. She hadn't discovered that it isn't cool to be excited about school. She still posed for pictures and hugged her teachers. She was on fire for school. Summer vacation didn't steal her joy. It didn't lure her away from her excitement about school.

Well, this got me to thinking about my own spiritual life (and other peoples spiritual lives). When I got saved I was ON FIRE for Jesus. Much like my youngest was excited about school. I read my Bible every day. I bought a Teen Devos book and read that every day. I studied my Sunday School lesson. I spent time with God in prayer every night and most mornings. I was excited about my new life as a Child of Christ.

Years have passed and as I look back I can see years that I have spent that I was less enthusiastic. Christianity seemed to me like the upper grades seem to my older kids. I wasn't bouncing out of bed on Sunday morning. I went from attending every other Sunday to not attending at all. I went on a spiritual summer vacation...I lost my enthusiasm for Jesus. I was still saved but I had let the world steal my excitement during my break from my church. It was the same with my kids. They all love school but they had let the summer break steal their excitement too. 

It took years for me to get back into a church family after I lost the excitement. Thankfully I have found my way back. The thing is, with the church comes the excitement. Just like when my kids got to school today and they saw all their friends, they came home with stories of their day and what everyone had been up to. I leave church and I am on fire again; just like I was when I was younger. The people encourage me. The people nurture my faith. The pastor leads me. God speaks to me when I am there. I feel his presence. 

Sure, I feel Him in my life other times, but I'm more in tune with Him when I have surrounded myself with people that know Him and crave His presence. I'm more confident to share His good news with people when I have been reaffirmed and reassured in a regular meeting with other believers. 

I guess what I'm saying is don't grow tired of your education in Christ. Remember that first grade feeling, remember that new believer feeling. Remember how you wanted to shout to the rooftops that you were a saved believer in the one true Christ. Keep going to regular meetings with other believers to reaffirm your faith. Keep the joy in your heart. Jesus loves you.... What do you have to be sad about?

 "Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity."

1 Timothy 4:12

21 Years...

21 years... A fraction of a lifetime...a blip on the timeline of a life.

11 years... Even smaller... it passes in a blink of an eye... such a small window of time.

8 years.... Minuscule... so small an amount of time that it might get overlooked in the story of a life... it's the time between graduation and marriage... it's the blip on the radar between the first day at a new job and getting a big promotion ...

All these years mean something to me.

21 years ago I was innocent. 21 years ago I didn't have any fears in my world. 21 years ago my mama and daddy could defeat anything that gave me nightmares. 21 years ago I was a little girl.

21 years ago a guy drank a bottle of whiskey (or a bottle of vodka, or a case of beer) and decided to go for a drive. 21 years ago he thought that he was untouchable. 21 years ago he probably thought that he wasn't that drunk, thought he'd only had a couple. 21 years ago he thought he was fine. 21 years ago he destroyed a community. 21 years ago he killed a girl and a boy. 21 years ago he sent 2 grieving parents to an emergency room. 21 years ago I stopped being a little girl. 

I was 11 years old. It was a Sunday. I had bought all my school supplies. I had a new back pack and a new binder. I can still close my eyes and smell that new binder smell. I sniff a binder today and I am not taken back to a happy childhood memory. New binder smell takes me back to that Sunday evening that changed my life forever. I hate the way that new binders smell.

I had a 3-D binder that year. It was 1993 and 3-D stuff was all the rage. It was pink and it looked like it had bubbles all over it. The bubbles were an optical illusion. Mead really out did themselves in 1993. 

I sat in my living room and tore my new pens and pencils out of their paper and plastic wrappings. I placed them carefully in the slots in my new JanSport back pack. I put the paper in my binder and separated it with subject dividers. I was ready for sixth grade.

It was going to be our big year. We had talked about it all summer. We had hoped and prayed that we would get the same home room. We were ready to start changing classes but we really didn't want to have to do it alone. We were sure that we could tackle anything together. We were going to open house on Monday.

21 years ago I went to my room and played with my Barbie's. We didn't attend church regularly on Sunday nights back then. I happily surrounded myself in my Barbie fantasy land. I was almost too old to enjoy Barbie's. I would have never played with them with my friends around. Never would have played with them around most of my friends. My best friend still liked to play with Barbie's. She and I would comb their hair and change their clothes all the while talking about which boys we liked or which girls had made us mad the week before. 21 years ago we both stopped playing with Barbie Dolls. 

I was playing with Barbie and Mississippi Burning was on Channel 11 that night. The grown up part of my 11 year old self wanted to watch Mississippi Burning. The child part wanted to brush Barbie's hair so I did both. It's weird the things you remember.

There was a knock at my door. I always kept it locked to keep my brother out. I figured it was him. He was the only on that ever knocked. I put Barbie down and stomped to my door. I was surprised when I opened it to see my Daddy.

He was crying. My daddy was crying. I don't think I had ever seen my daddy cry before this night. My mother ushered my brother into my daddy's arms. I looked down the hallway and I see my grandmother crying. I assume that my Papaw is dead. I sniffle and prepare myself for the worst possible news that an 11 year old girl could imagine.

It's not Papaw.... that was the thought that had me relieved and devastated in all of a second.

.....

I don't remember how he said it. I remember him being honest. I remember him crying.... a lot. I remember him saying there had been an accident. I remember him saying that Crystal and CJ were dead. My best friend and her little brother were dead. 

The rest of the night was kind of a blur. I remember someone put Grease 2 on the TV. I laid on the couch, in a fog and saw parts of it. I cried a lot. A few of my friends called, but what sympathy can another 11 year old share? How were any of us expected to cope with this?

I went to my room again eventually. I shut the closet doors on my Barbie's. I never played with them again. I sat on my bed and I looked at the guardian angel portrait that hung above my bed and I asked God "Why?" 

11 years and 8 years.... Hard to imagine that as I look at my own children. 11 years and 8 years and they were gone from this Earth. They were on their way to church. Less than a five mile drive from their home. The drunk driver that killed them was less than a half a mile from his home. LESS than a half a mile... And you know, as angry as I still am, I can't help but think that he was a young life, too. Younger than I am now... I don't know him, but I can't fathom that he could ever forget about the lives he extinguished. The community he ravaged.

It took a while but I eventually accepted that God's ways are not our own. God has a plan for every life. I wish I could have a Jimmy Stewart moment and see how different my own would be had it not been for Crystal. Had she lived it would have been so different. Had she never existed it would have been even more different. Her 11 years and her brother's 8 years meant something to me.

21 years and I still tear up thinking about them. 21 years and I still look back and wonder what might have been. 21 years and I believe, firmly, that they are waiting on me. They are in the arms of my Savior and they are waiting to greet me on the other side. I thank God for the 11 years that Crystal was in my life, including every slumber party and pizza hut trip and whispered secret in the dark of my room...and for the 8 years that CJ pestered us and begged us to play Nintendo baseball with him... even for that time that he whopped me in the head with a golf club when we were building forts in the woods. For every memory, I am truly grateful.

August 8 will be 21 years. 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

1 Corinthians 1:3-4

Author's Note:

Last week a 10 year old girl and her 8 year old brother were killed along with their grandmother in a car accident near Tallahassee. They were from Thomasville, AL, which is just a hop over from where I live now. They were buried this weekend. Their father buried his children and his mother. The city of Thomasville was devastated by this tragedy. 

Alas, life goes on...the Thomasville schools started back today. I have thought about them all day. I am praying for the children as they adjust to life without their friends. I am praying for that father and his wife as they learn to live without their children. It took our little community years to repair our hearts from our tragic loss. I know what they are going through and so I pray even harder for their comfort.