Estimated reading time: 3 minutes:-)
Last week, I visited Lutheran for the first time since I graduated.
Man, it was weird. You don’t know your school has a smell until you spend months away. You don’t realize how much you miss it.
The front office ladies gave us visitor lanyards and I felt so strange. I wasn’t in dress code. Some of the teachers even asked who I was because they’re new this year. It was a weird feeling.
But as I walked through the halls during passing period, looking at all those high schoolers, I don’t know ~ I think it just hit me. How faithful God has been.
We spent most of the time talking with teachers and catching up. But that theme of God’s faithfulness was like a song ringing through the halls the whole time, reminding me of everything that happened in this place.
As I drove home I found myself wishing I could speak to my freshman self for just a moment. Because if I could, this is what I would say:
“I wish you knew what was coming.
I wish you knew how significant this place would be to you, how much it will change your life. Don’t take a single day for granted. I know you will. But try not to.
I wish you knew the thing that’s stressing you out right now won’t even grace your memory in 4 years. I wish I could tell you you’ll be okay.
Gosh, I wish you would read your Bible every day. I know all the excuses you’ll come up with. I know it’s hard to fit it in. But man, I can’t even tell you how much it will change your life. I wish you would just sit with God tonight.
I wish I could make you believe that God is with you.
How many times did you feel lonely? How many times did you feel like no one was there?
He was sitting right there next to you.
I wish I could make you believe it.
He was with you on your first day of high school, when you went to the wrong class and your spanish teacher teased you.
He was with you no matter who you sat with at lunch, no matter how well soccer practice went, no matter whether you ate breakfast or not.
He was with you when you had to go to school dances alone. He was with you the day Covid shut everything down. He was with you the day your heart broke. He was with you the day it took all your strength to not cry during class.
He is with you. I wish I could tell you. He is with you.
And I have to remind myself: if He was faithful for all those years, He won’t stop being faithful now.
Take a moment today and think about how God has been so faithful. Think about all the ways He’s redeemed you and loved you and watered you gently. Praise God! And remember: if He was faithful then, He is faithful now.
He is faithful now.
