This weekend I will celebrate being graduated from High School 10 years. Technically it's been 10 years, 1 month and 4 days...but who's counting!So much has changed (especially my eyebrows!), yet so much has stayed the same...and I find myself reflecting on the past 10 years and beyond. I've been told that your personality is shaped in the first 5 years of life, but I have found that a lot that happened my final 5 years of high school impacted my life in a way I'll never forget!
When looking back to my high school years, it's a time that i'd give anything to go back to. I know it's not healthy to dwell on the past, and i'm not...but it was a much simpler time back then: Always being in shape, able to eat whatever you wanted, no job, no responsibility, free food and housing, getting to see your best friends every day, and doing semi-illegal things but never getting caught!
We were all trying to discover who we were, and what our place in this huge world was....how much was acting to be popular, and how much was genuinely ourselves. We had great adults trying to make us wiser, better people...some who'd challenge us, some who'd support us, and some who'd act more like your friend than teacher.
Don't get me wrong, high school was not all fun & games for me....I spent many nights trying to figure out why I was popular in one realm but unpopular in another, thinking i was fat instead of athletic (when looking back i was super skinny!), and wondering how to enjoy myself at a prom where i was the only one without a date...(sob, sob).
But I'd like to think I had a lot of friends...i tried my hand at a lot of different groupings: soccer, basketball (2 weeks there to be exact), softball, theater, senior steering, art, math, AP chemistry...I was all over the place..hanging out with a lot of different people....we'll see what everyone remembers this weekend!
But the one major thing that happened in high school which I am most thankful for is playing soccer and eventually meeting (and liking) my two best friends to this day: Rachel & Rebecca Freer (married last names: Shipman & Johnson respectively and pictured above). It was Mr. Mac, my amazing soccer coach of 5 years that kept both on the soccer team for more than their soccer skill. He kept them on the team for their faith and their skill. And for that I am eternally grateful.
You see it is Becca and Rachel who befriended me at one of the lowest points of my life, and through our friendship and a trip to a winter weekend camp, introduced me to Jesus. Finally, something to live for! What's more amazing than living to bring God to glory and praise. A God who made us perfectly, in His image, who created the world and everything in it....to love others more than I love myself, to show others the amazing transformation that can happen when the truth enters your heart. (Picture from 2008...lookin' pretty good!)
So this weekend, I hope my classmates see the changes that have happened over the past 10 years. From an intimidating, untouchable, unlovable, tomboy athlete to a loving, caring, approachable, feminine Christian.
God really does orchestrate every part of our lives, even if we don't know Him yet. So tell me...how has God worked in your life over the past 10 years?
And here's just one more picture for good measure...um yeah...i was 13!
Katie on "America's Most Wanted":
