That Girl Would Never Believe It

I told you that yesterday marked twenty-five years since my high school graduation, which means that today marks twenty-five years since I stayed up almost 24 hours in a row. (Staying up that many hours has rarely been my forte in life.) Our high school always had a senior fling the night of graduation. Maybe they still do. Or did...before pandemics. I was never one to attend extracurriculars at school, but the senior fling was kind of a big deal. A once in a lifetime moment. 

So the day of my graduation, I got up early to get ready for church and then we had graduation that afternoon, my open house that afternoon and evening...and then it was time to head back to school for the senior fling. I think it started somewhere around 10 p.m. and went until about 4 in the morning. My parents did not want me driving home after that, so I went to stay with my friend Amber, who lived practically next door to the school. We stumbled into her house, all bleary-eyed in the middle of the night. She crawled into her bed and I unrolled a sleeping bag on the floor and may have paused long enough to unzip it and get inside before conking out for hours. It felt so...grown up...to stay out so late.

I think about 18-year old-Bekah sometimes. 

Pieces of the girl I was back then remind me of the tenants I serve now. So many dreams - but not for things that are super lofty. Just dreams of a regular life with a pretty house and some cats to love. I had the blessing of parents who gently guided me toward those things. And now I hope in some way that I can be a guide for those living here. That I can give them gentle nudges in the direction that will allow them to see those simple dreams come to pass. (I also think we can all agree based on the photo above that my dreams should not have led me toward a career in a salon. Look at that. I was cutting my own bangs too short EVEN THEN. Some things never change.)

Other things that never change include...my bent toward creativity. This picture was taken in the yearbook room while I was on staff. To be honest, my one lone year on the staff wasn't a great experience. Our teacher was brand new (to teaching as a profession) and only found out the week before school started that she was going to be in charge of yearbook. She had no idea how to teach it or put one together, and I think it's possible that our senior yearbook went down in history as the worst one ever made. (For the record, I did love that teacher as a person very much. She was SO sweet. I felt sorry for her that she was thrown into that role without any preparation or guidance!) But that aside, I loved being in a class that fed the creative side of me. And I certainly had no clue back then that I'd go on to be a lifelong scrapbooker, making yearbooks of my own.

I worked as a cadet teacher in my mom's class that year. Every student in the class took a turn being the "someone special" of the week, and at the end of the year, I had a feature week of my own. It's good to be someone special, isn't it? We all crave it. Those little first graders did. I did. Our tenants do now. We all want to be seen and known and loved. That never changes, either.

Also never changing? How easily I'm embarrassed. This was on my 18th birthday, which was less than a week before graduation. My friends sang to me in the lunchroom. 

Loudly.

And there was a cute boy in the back. 

This is still 100% me when people stare.

But for all the things that never change, so much has completely changed. Ryan asks me sometimes if the Bekah of high school EVER would have imagined what the Bekah of 2021 does for a living. The answer? Never. Never in a million years. 

Never would I have imagined that twenty-five years down the road, I would be in this role that challenges and grows me and pulls things out of me I didn't even know I had in me. Never did I imagine I'd be working with the same general age group that I was right then. 

This girl never would have believed it. 

I say this to encourage you that God has plans for your life. And it doesn't matter what you'd never imagine you could or would do. If He calls you to it, He'll equip you for it. Sometimes He'll equip on the run, but He'll do it.

I think of this 18 year old girl when I talk to our tenants. I try to remember how she felt. What scared her. What motivated her. What pushed her. And I try to remember that the journey from the pictures you see here to the girl I am today was a long journey filled with a lot of work on God's part. The young adults we work with have that same journey ahead of them. Our job is to show them love and trust God to take it from there.

And maybe one of these days, they'll look at their throwback pictures from 2021 and not believe what God has done in their lives, either!