Finding my High School Letter
Finding my High School Letter
By Alexis Rebennack
Monday afternoon I walked into my house, chucked my purse on the chair, grabbed the mail, and claimed the couch.
Thumbing through envelopes, I paused when I saw my high school letterhead and "Alexis' Five Year Letter."
Has it really been five years since I graduated high school? Rolling my eyes out of fear that I wrote some ridiculous love letter to some long forgotten crush, I reluctantly opened the envelope.
A love letter was nowhere to be found (Insert praise hands emoji). Instead, I found the dreams of a high school girl. I found the hopes of an optimist. I found the "please make sure you____'s" of a realist. With much gratitude, I smiled seeing I had accomplished much of what I wanted. With a tinge of regret, I saw I had failed in many ways as well.
Five years later, and I’m not the same girl who wrote that letter. I have traveled the world since then. I have resolved to do life God’s way. I wrote my dad’s obituary. I graduated college. I entered the workforce.
And as I read my letter, I kept thinking "I wish I understood back then that life is a constant change of seasons."
As a teenager, summer, fall, winter, and spring held the promise of vacations, presents, dances and graduations. But aside from those few markers, my seasons held a lot of transitional in-betweens. The friendship gains and losses, the heartaches and the requited loves, the rigorous course loads, and the inspiring classes—these were all just a changing leaf in one of thousands of autumn seasons. I wish I understood that then.
Once we realize that ups and downs will always be, we can more easily accept them as just a smaller part of the bigger picture.
Once we realize that growth spurts and pimples are a small price to pay in our glorious unraveling as stronger, more striking, more powerful women, we can welcome and not resist unwanted changes.
Our highs and lows, gains and losses, changes and sameness weave together into something more awe-inspiring than we will ever see on this side of heaven.
We must choose to let it all go and rest in the sweet promise that God knows our destiny, and He has an abundant life for us.
Through each season, I wish that I knew I could be gentle with myself. I wish I would've spoken more kindly to myself. I wish I would've told the enemy who I really am more often.
So if I could tell the high school version of myself something, I would’ve told her this: Sweet woman, don't cave to the way of indifference. Don't settle for the good enough. Let God in on your hopes and your dreams. Know there is no safer place for your secrets and your thoughts than in His presence.
Know that in every endeavor, all of heaven cheers you on in victory! When you determine to eat lunch with that one girl, as your mind hurls a thousand reasons why she will think it's weird, or why you yourself are weird for doing that, keep walking. When you and your boyfriend have a choice to push physical boundaries, remember that God filled you with wisdom, so you know lust is just a glimmering lie that has no power over you. When it’s Saturday night and your friends begin acting a fool, don’t talk yourself into their behavior. Go home early and get stoked about the spiritual stamina you’re building.
When comparison tries to steal your joy, shout the Devil out with Psalm 34:10 “...those who seek the Lord lack no good thing!”
Put all of your hope and confidence in Him, so that when your friends, parents and teachers fail you, you won't fall apart because your “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind” Number 23:19.
Sweet woman, be sweet to yourself. Be accepting of yourself and your season. Just as another school year rolls around so quickly, yet another season will too.
Seasons are not forever--the good and the bad ebb and flow like water. But no matter where you find yourself, know God's nearness remains constant. His goodness remains present, and He will meet your every need every time.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” Isaiah 43:19.
Alexis Rebennack is a New Orleans native pursuing her passions with the time she’s been given. She hopes that among the verbs, adjectives, and nouns you’ll encounter Jesus and His gloriously kind heart.
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