Back in time

I graduated from high school 14 years ago.  When they say time flies, it is no joke.  It baffles me sometimes to look back and count years and realize what all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, actually stretched over a decade and a half.  This year I feel a bit as if I have gone back in time.  I have followed my children and my teacher husband back into the wonderful world of school.  In some ways it is quite different from my childhood school as it is located in Asia, bilingual, and filled with faces from around the world.  In other ways it feels so familiar as it is a private K-12 school with small classes and a community feel.  It has been so interesting to settle back into this world (that I never intended to re-enter) and find my place here 14 years later. Walking the hallways and watching the students I realize just how long ago it really was that it was me with the book-bag and the awkward halfway grown up heart and body.  They all seem very young. But although I chuckle a bit at the budding romances and the dramas, I am reminded that I was just this age when I actually met the love of my life and we began our long journey together.  It hardly seems possible when I look at these very young people but it happened to me and so I know it’s not out of the realm of possibility.  Some of the things that happen here in high-school will impact these kids for the rest of their lives. 

Part of finding my place back in this all too familiar but still so foreign environment has been figuring out where I fit and what I can do to make myself useful and at home in this little community.  One of those things has been getting involved with the school yearbook.  I was on the yearbook committee in high school and I have lots of good memories of figuring out themes and designing layouts ( of course this was all pre-digital and mostly done by hand).  I volunteered to help out a bit, at first just editing articles and sorting photos, and then gradually began designing layouts and setting themes.  Even here everything is oddly familiar but quite a bit different as it’s all digital and done on photoshop programs instead of hand drawn.  But my love of photography and page design has all come back to me and I found myself in the end neck deep in photo layouts, editing, and deadlines with quite a few late nights and tired eyes from endless staring at the screen.  In the end we made what I think is a fantastic book and I am proud of the result.  I thoroughly enjoyed the process and it helped me to feel at home in my new environment. 

It surprised me yet again that something I had learned so long ago was coming in handy so many years later.  I am always turning a corner in life and bumping into a new situation, only to find out that the skills I need were handed to me years ago when I couldn’t possibly have seen into my future to realize they would be useful later.God has written my life story with such intricate detail and it seems no experience in my past has been wasted on my future.  Time after time something random from long ago keeps popping up as useful to me now.  I am overwhelmed by His attention to detail and the masterful way He has woven together the pieces of my life so far.  I’m so curious to see what the future will hold and what He will surprise me with next. But for now I will content myself with navigating the school hallways and learning what this chapter of my life holds.  I’m sure along the way I will continue to pick up tools that He will use later as He continues building my life story in a way that only He could do.    

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