My daughter
returned to school this year to start her senior year in high school. As excited as I am to see her enjoy this
final year and to be able to experience much of it with her as I teach at her
school, there is a sense of a chapter ending when I think of this new
season. A few weeks ago I went to the
first football game of her senior year in which she cheered. She will never cheer another first football
game again. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m
not going to be the parent that cries over things like, “oh, she just ate her last
hamburger with pickles and overdone fries for school lunch her senior
year.” But I’ll be honest; I’ll be
lamenting some of those lasts of her high school career. I’ll also be rejoicing with her as the new
things in this chapter begin. She will
be doing things like visiting colleges, writing essays for scholarships,
filling out college applications, etc.…. So the last chapter of her high school
career doesn’t need to be the last chapter of it all. I’m also looking ahead to the great things
that God has planned for her beyond this year.
Now I’ve
noticed one thing about this back-to-school week that gives me a chuckle every
year, and that’s how so many kids will actually et up on time and have their
things gathered together and ready to walk out the door with no prodding from
mom. There’s almost a sense of wondering,
will this actually be the year that mom won’t have to yell to get her kids
moving in the morning? I hate to be a naysayer
but I’m gonna have to say from the experience of having three kids that have
done this that the answer is a big NO!
Sorry for that reality. Come
early October, you will be the mom that yells, “If I’ve told you once I’ve told
you ten times. Get. Up. Now!! The next
time I come in there I will be squirting water on your face!” Don’t be sad about this. For you, it might
come later like maybe mid -October. You
push them out the door with a quick prayer, throw them a muffin for breakfast
as the door shuts and wonder why you just don’t home school. And for those of you that do homeschool,
well, again, from experience, there are other issues you could add to the new
chapter.
I feel like
oftentimes our lives as Christian women are like the back-to-school
season. A new Bible study starts, we get
onboard with it and we are so excited and have this wonderful anticipation that
we are going to finally become Biblical scholars. We arrive early to the study, we even clean
ourselves up a bit to look presentable and we have our Bibles, highlighters and
pen all together and ready to grab at a moments notice. However, several weeks into the study when
it’s not new anymore to us we show up either just as the leader is beginning or
maybe slither in a bit late, forgetting to change out of our sweatpants and
spending much of the study digging in the bottomless pit of our purses trying
to find a pen that works and realizing that we left our highlighter in the
car. Uggg. We loose our excitement and fervor because
the study has revealed some things about us that we don’t like and so we are
rebelling back in our own little way deciding that yes, we’ll finish out this
study but we’re going to kick and scream in our own way doing it. It’s like the child that refuses to get out
of bed for school in the morning because school now bugs them.
Why do we sabotage
new and exciting things-- these wonderful new chapters in our lives that we
have an opportunity to write? It’s as if
we take that pen and start writing a mile a minute and then our pen starts
moving slower, and slower and our eyes droop and the pen just scribbles off the
side of the page. (I know that this does happen as I sat in the front row of a
college class and did just that as the professor stood in front of me and
watched the whole thing.)
Revelations
2:4 in the NAS Bible says, But I have this against you, that you have
left your first love. I used the example of a new school year as
that new and exciting thing—that first love if you will. (Though for many students there’s no love at
all there—but stick with me here). In
this new season, as summer comes to a close (I’m sorry, someone had to tell
you,) I want to encourage you that if you have left or maybe strayed away a bit
from your first love, which in Revelations is speaking of Christ, then what a great time to begin again. Gain back that excitement that you once had
for your relationship with Christ. Get
someone else on board with you to keep you accountable so you won’t be like
that Bible study gal that dwindles halfway through, or that student that has to
be sprayed with water in order to get moving.
The thing I love about being a part
of a group of Christian people is that we can and should be encouraging and
building each other up. So you stepped
away for a bit. That’s done and over. Philippians 3:13 says this, Brothers and sisters, I do not consider
myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is
behind and straining toward what is ahead.
My friends, this is a new season, a
new chapter and it’s just waiting for you to jump on board. You can stay in what I call your “Eeyore
moments” or you can plunge forward and start living your purpose. Don’t worry, God’s got you and he won’t leave
you nor will he drop you. Be encouraged
because we are all in this together.
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