You Can, Indeed, Go Home Again
“School days … school days …dear old golden rule days…”
Although it’s hard to believe in this age of the internet … social media … and air travel … I attended a one-room schoolhouse for the first two years of my education.
How I loved those days when I could eavesdrop on what the fifth graders were learning … I could spell words with the third-graders … and play kickball with all ages of kids!
Then … in second grade … I went to the consolidated school in my district … and my eyes were opened even wider! Massive hallways … a noisy cafeteria … and a stern principal. This introverted second-grader was in over her head … way over her blonde head!
But I had teachers who loved me and cared about my gentle heart … they enveloped me in their compassion and steered me into a deep love for words and reading.
I was safe … and believed in … and challenged in those early years of my public education.
And then came high school …
Football games … cheerleading try-outs … Regents exams.
Trying to understand Chemistry and Trigonometry … choir concerts … pajama parties.
The prom … cafeteria food … Latin class … senior pictures.
“January to December we'll have moments to remember
The New Years Eve we did the town;
The day we tore the goal post down,
We will have these moments to remember.
The quiet walks, the noisy fun -
The ballroom prize we almost won,
We will have these moments to remember.
Though summer turns to winter and the present disappears -
The laughter we were glad to share will echo through the years.
When other nights and other days may find us gone our separate ways,
We will have these moments to remember.”
This week I will be attending my 50th High School Class Reunion!
How is that even possible?
Where did 50 years go?
Well … 5 decades went to college … to marriage … to motherhood … and to ministry.
The first of those fifty years were gobbled up while I was writing papers … making new friends from around the country …trying to pass college exams … practicing for piano juries … dealing with homesickness.
The next few years disappeared into the sweet mist of falling in love … planning a wedding … learning to live with a man I was just getting to know … and finally realizing the richness of a love that lasts through the years.
600 months passed while I was changing diapers … wiping noses … making grilled cheese sandwiches … and homeschooling my brood of children. These may have been my favorite months of all!
2,600 weeks departed while I was going to my sons’ high school basketball games … my daughters’ ballet recitals … the angst of raising teen-agers … and sending each one of my 5 children off to college. I’ve never gotten over the fact that my children are grown and gone … they left me. The nerve of those kids!
18,262 days happened while I was writing books … teaching Bible studies … traveling around the world encouraging women … writing blogs … producing podcasts … and serving Jesus every day in every way.
I have found myself extremely emotional the past few weeks as I have prepared to go to this momentous reunion … I cry easily and often.
Why is it? Why has this reunion stirred up so many uncontrollable emotions?
Well … most of you know I am a highly emotional person. I feel pain … happiness … disappointment … delight … acutely.
But this has put me over the edge … I am slogging through fierce emotions … and I am up to my eyes in profound feelings.
I think it is because I love life so much … and I especially loved growing up in the safety of a not perfect but simply wonderful home.
I loved my school years … and the friends I made … the teachers I adored … and the school system that laid a solid foundation in my life.
I was young once … and I was young with the people with whom I will be celebrating life this weekend.
I am learning the truth that you can, indeed, go home again.
I will be at home with the friends of my youth … and I will cry.
“Youth is not entirely a time of life; it is a state of mind. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.”
General Douglas MacArthur
Thanks for listening to my heart this week. As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me. And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is!