Part of transplanting back home is being in the same city as your high school, therefore attending your high school reunion.
It has been 20 years since I had seen most of them in person. Social media has definitely helped to not make it feel that way but we can all put on a great front of social media. The people I was closest to in high school are the people I still see on occasion, and I’m good with that.
It wasn’t a big crowd, a fraction of our graduating class really. We met at a local restaurant and hung out. I didn’t talk to everyone who walked in the door but I did easily recognize most everyone. We all looked the same, but older. It was great catching up with people and I enjoyed the night but I have to say, I am glad it doesn’t happen every month (or every year for that matter). Every 10 is just fine with me.
After the reunion, when Adam and I were heading home, I immediately felt bad. I hadn’t talked to everyone and what if those people thought I was a horrible, mean adult. I didn’t want that. And as I thought about that “feeling,” I realized that my high school reunion, sent me right back to high school. I cared about what everyone else thought. I felt like I was being judged and talked about behind my back. And what could I do to change someone’s opinion about me?
I woke up in the middle of the night caring about what my fellow Vikings, Class of ’98, thought about me. Really?!? I thought I was passed that. I’m closer to 40 than 35, I have a great husband and 2 awesome kids. I’ve moved states multiple times, a couple of times knowing no one at all. I did that, and a lot more. I am a strong woman and I KNOW who I am. I KNOW that I am loved beyond measure and saved and secure and known. I KNOW it all yet I spent a good 12 hours (or longer) back in that place of trying to please others and caring what they thought.
It is not a fun place to be. It wasn’t fun in high school and it is not fun as an adult- especially when you know better! But, at the end of the day, I know the truth. And I will still see those fellow Vikings on social media and we will all put on a good front because that’s what we do on social media. And it won’t be until our 30 year reunion that I will see most of them again. For now, I will go back to my life. The life I am blessed to live. The life where I get to love my family well and raise 2 amazing humans. The life where I enjoy my husband more than ever before. I will still seek what the Lord wants for me, and minister to women in whatever capacity he calls me to. I will live this one life well and I will love what is in front of me.
This experience of the feelings flooding back has given me perspective and has caused me to do a lot of thinking. I have reflected a lot on “those days” and what I was like. I’ve come to the conclusion that I was even more insecure than I realized. Adam has always said the most attractive quality in a woman is confidence, and boy have I lacked that in my life. The definition of confidence is “the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.” How is one supposed to be confident when one does not know the truth. I was never going to be confident in high school because I was relying on the truth of other’s, to be my truth. The truth that looked at the outward qualities and defined me. The truth that told me time and again I wasn’t quite good enough- close but there was always someone better.
When you look to others for your truth, you become who they want you to be. You change and ebb and flow and become insecure because yesterday’s truth may not be today’s. Hold your breath because you don’t know what today will hold. Does this outfit look ok? Did I study enough for the test? And let’s extend it because as women, it is easy to look to other’s for our truth. Was dinner good? Did I buy the right shirt for my daughter? Will I fit in at the PTO meeting? This isn’t just isolated to jr high or high school. It isn’t isolated to our daughter’s or our son’s. This is us and it is the world we live in.
Someone is always going to be telling you something. What you have to decide is whether you’re going to accept it as truth or not. What do you use to measure truth? If you don’t have a good measuring stick, might I suggest a little book called the Bible. There’s a whole lot packed into those pages! For me, I know that I was created by God. He knit me together and knows the hairs on my head. He knows my thoughts and my tomorrows. And even better, He holds it all for me. I choose to measure my truth by His words. Do a google search, “what does the Bible say about ____?” The Bible says, if you seek, you will find. So today, and tomorrow and next week- go out and seek your truth. Hold it close. Memorize it. Know it backward and forward. Tell someone about it. Because the day after tomorrow or the week after next, someone is going to be there to tell you a different truth. And if you aren’t holding close to God’s truth, you may get taken right back to untruth. What are you going to believe? Or rather, WHO are you going to believe?
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