“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”― Søren Kierkegaard

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”― Søren Kierkegaard

In this way, sometimes, life seems cruel to me. Why don't we know more about what we should have done before it's too late to change it?

But I know God isn't this way, nor did He originally design our lives to be this way. When the first choice to sin happened in the world, it didn't just have a little effect or effect some things. It effected everything and everyone. And in my mind, high school was a great example of people who have been effected by, and choose, the allurements of sin over the sometimes more subtle satisfaction of being self-less, kind, courageous, honest, and other admirable character traits.

So I learned a lot of things the hard way my first day at school. Like that the toilet paper is stored outside the bathroom, on the wall, and everyone sees how much you get. The administration apparently did that because kids kept throwing the rolls in to stop up the toilets.

And even though there was an admin watching the bathrooms... she didn't seem to notice when the boy went in that was in the stall with the girl next to my stall. It was pretty obvious what they were doing. Should I have bothered mentioning it to her? But, I did, because it was awkward... "Ummm, there was a boy in there... in the stall with a girl." She looked around alarmed, then asked me why I wasn't headed to class - the bell rang.

I was late to my first class ever in high school. Of course, this was the one day pretty much everyone else was on time. I walked over to a free seat. It seemed like only the ones in the front were left. The teacher was already talking, so I just had to hope I hadn't missed much.

I stared at my binder, where I had written quotes from people I considered inspiring and Scriptures I liked to remember throughout the day.
"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” CS Lewis. Well, some classes felt like a waste of those minutes today. "Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth." Another CS Lewis quote - but I didn't get to ask any deep questions today. Mostly I asked about the basic classroom rules... I don't know if I wasn't listening, or if the teachers just always responded so harshly... but there was a lot of information. I finally decided just not to ask any more questions for the rest of the day.

The thing is, nothing happened today. There was no moment when I didn't just feel ordinary. There was no moment when I could see anything of any significance, anything that might be a great opportunity to be a light to others, to encourage anyone in particular... I just barely got to my class, wrote down notes, and packed up just to repeat the whole process. I wasn't any different from any other kid this first day of school, and I didn't even have any new friends to distract me from the fact that I didn't recognize almost anyone else there.

Maybe tomorrow, I thought to myself. I hugged one of my binders closer on the bus, reciting one of the verses I had been staring at.

Romans 5:15
"But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!"