Time After Time...

Recently, I have had the chance to reconnect with a few friends from deep in my past. It has really been incredible to see how life has played out for all of us. At the moment, I am thirty-four and a half years old. I have moved thirty-three different times in my life. Not all of them were big dramatic moves, but there is one move that changed the entire path of my life. One that cut off an entire history I had built up, and when it was time to move, all of it was left behind. The people, the friends, the shared memories... all gone. I was 15 and that may sound just too young for it to even matter, but it has still been something I look back on with sadness.

Up until the sixth grade, I had moved nearly every year of my life. I went to a different school every single year, lived in a different house, apartment, trailer, etc., ... I came in out of of the lives of other kids like the next season of a TV show. I never had any consistent place, life or friends to call my own. When other people ask me where I am from, or where I grew up, I always stagger and hesitate. I was like a gypsy child, roaming the small towns of Alabama, and then the general outskirts of Dallas, TX. The only person that connected the dots was my sister, who also was being dragged along. I eventually got used to moving and learned how to read the ads in the paper just so I could have some input. Why? Everyone always asks why... I used to think it was just the way it was. Apparently, my dad was a rent-skipper. I didn't know it at the time, but we were so poor, that once we couldn't pay the rent we would either get evicted, or jump off the train just before we were thrown off... There were lots of reasons why we were poor; young parents, low income, bad habits, addictions, etc... We were the kind of family that churches brought Christmas presents to. I just found that out this year.

So, we moved into one, "spot" when I was in the sixth grade. I say spot, because we still moved around, even though we stayed in the same school zone. I had the privilege of starting junior high with actual friends I had made the year before at O'Henry Elementary School. This school was home of the sweet Ms. Johannes, my teacher, who was the first woman I ever knew with fake nails. Also the home of the loveable, Mr. Fagg, the fresh new Science teacher who was brave enough to choose the elementary teaching field in spite of such a terrible namesake. OHES was where I had my first counseling practice every day at recess. I think I have written before about it, but during recess kids would line up at the see-saws and ask me for advice about various things. It was cute. I had some great friends, Sara L. and Dina H. became my very best-est friends in the whole world. I have been in contact with them over Facebook, which is unbelievably cool to me. I also recently have been in touch with my old Liberty Jr. High friend Doug, who was an unfortunate witness to me being sloshed the one and only time I have been in my life, at the only drunken warehouse party I ever went to. He was also waiting for me the only night I ever snuck out of my house. He was either my guardian angel or a very bad influence... What can I say, I was thirteen. I was easily influenced and "Appetite For Destruction" by GNR had just been released. I was feeling rebellious.

Well, I was in the middle of my ninth grade year, which in TX was still junior high. We were moving back to Alabama and changing schools in the middle of the year. I was being plucked from this place I had invested nearly four years of my life in. This was four times longer than any other place I had ever been, four times longer than I had invested in any friendships. It was so traumatic. I was deeply angry. It set me on a path of seething anger that took me years to work through. So we left, we moved. My path completely changed. An old life, I had to leave behind. A few letters came, but then it was over. Life was forever changed.

There are so many other important experiences and people that crossed my path in those early days. I have learned a lot from all of it. It has made me a well rounded person. An extrovert by nature, all of those "opportunities" to meet new people helped me hone in on my people skills and I really am comfortable in new situations. Because of this I have a deep need for real connection with people. When I get to know them, I want to invest, to anchor myself into their lives... to really know them. My heart was trained early in life that things you care about can disappear quickly, so don't waste time, don't waste words. Just use what time you have and let your lives be open.

Facebook has been a tremendous leveler in my life. It is like I had 33 unique worlds and all of them collided. My life does not seem so random anymore. All of these different people are the dots that I have not been able to connect. The dots are on Facebook! Wow, it really is amazing. It shows me again, that even though I did not see Him, that God was there. He was the constant in my life before I even knew Him. He knew where I was at all times, to Him I was never anonymous. That time after time, place after place, person after person, He was there. The God of my life is the God over all of the history in my life, and the God of all history. He has used the hurts of my past, the challenges to really communicate to me that I am His, that I always was. That all of my life has had a great purpose, a specific plan. He is where I am headed, and He is where I have been. It makes sense of what used to seem so senseless. He is working "all things together for the good". Nothing in my life has been secret from Him, nothing has been unknown or forgotten. All of it matters, all of it is meaningful... all of it is useful. What a sense of clarity... what assurance of the things to come.