For some, this blog will be about the best four years of our entire lives!  Sadly, for a lot of us, these four years have come and gone!  OUR HIGH SCHOOL YEARS! It’s all downhill for us now folks- no more fun in life! NO, JUST KIDDING! Do you ever remember, when you told people that you were in high school, they would say, “Treasure these years; they are the best years of your life.”  REALLY? Are you kidding? Maybe if your high school was in Mister Roger’s neighborhood! 

I remember my high school years, being some of the hardest years of my life!  High school was a battlefield way, way, way back then! High school today is even more a battlefield than it was back then!  We need to pray for people in high school. Not only for their protection, but also for each and every one to come to know and accept Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is the answer for each and every one of us!

I will never forget my very first day of High School; I didn’t know one single soul!  It was a big school, and all of a sudden, I felt totally alone! I got inside the building and just stood there like a big GEEK, waiting for someone- anyone- to take pity on me! I finally found someone to show me to my room!  Oh, it was just the head principal over the whole school! If that doesn’t say “geek”- having no friends, not knowing what to do and having to be shown to your room by the principal- I don’t know what does! I was a misfit in High School, and I probably still am by a lot of people’s standards!  You know what?  I don’t care! I have a good life!

Physical Education (PE) was my worst nightmare, especially when we were doing basketball, volleyball and I think we even played tennis! I couldn’t do anything.  It felt like it was an hour for kids to laugh and make fun of me!  I only had to make it through three years of PE. Seniors didn’t have to take PE (so I thought.)  I was relishing my senior year and not having to take PE!!!! Mom was the best and she only wanted what was in our best interest! She came home from parent/teacher conferences and told me that she had signed me up for PE my senior year!  “Mom, please tell me you didn’t!” Yep, she did!  I can’t fault her for it! She thought it would actually be a PE class I could do and would enjoy; she really did have my best interest in mind! It was supposed (the key word here is SUPPOSED) to be a new “adaptive” PE class!  I can’t blame Mom that the teacher didn’t know what the word “ADAPTIVE” meant!!!!  I think it was an “adaptive” class for beginner gymnasts!  We had to come up with a balance beam and jump rope routine!  Now let me ask you, “What’s wrong with this picture?” The balance beam was only about four inches high, but still, I had trouble just walking on the flat ground!  My balance beam routine was walking across the beam, with two people walking beside me holding my hands! Something that was supposed to help me feel included, just seemed to make me feel different again. Special Education was in its early stages and there was definitely a learning curve.  I am grateful that an attempt was being made to try to incorporate people with disabilities into normal things.

To be fair, I think (I’m not completely sure) I remember them taking us bowling. We would leave the school and go to the local bowling lanes but, once again, I looked funny because I bowled with two hands!  I enjoyed bowling and at least I could do it, in my own unique way!  Also, I think they let me do an “adaptive” horseback riding lesson for a season, but that was also off school property! 

I, like every young high school girl, dreamed of being asked to Homecoming, Prom or other dances! I always thought it would be fun to have a reason to get all dolled up in a floor length gown and have my knight in shining armor come pick me up in a full length limousine (I couldn’t say a horse, I had to bring it into the 21^st century!) and whisk me away for a night of dancing and fun!  I would be like Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.”  I’m pretty sure that I’d have come home singing, “I could have danced all night! I could have danced all night and still have danced some more!”  Around the time of any dance, was hard for me!  I’d walk by a group of boys, talking together and I would hear one of them say, “There goes your date” (meaning me) and then they would all start laughing!  I wanted so bad to walk right up to them and say, “Excuse me, but I overheard what you all were saying about me!  Frankly, I wouldn’t date any of you, even if you all were the last guys left on the entire earth!” You know that old saying, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” IT’S NOT TRUE! WORDS DO HURT!!!!  For example, if someone slapped me in the face, the pain of that would last 1-2 seconds but, on the other hand, the pain of what someone says to me can last weeks, months or years! 

Ok,  enough of the bad, hard times!  I really did have some good times in High School! I mentioned in last week’s blog, God provided me with a group of Christian friends, and we’d have a prayer meeting before school would start! They all became good friends!  They really showed God’s love to me!  I was also in one of the best youth groups at my church I’d ever been in!  I would have parties at my house and people would actually come!  I even went to football games with some of my good friends! I couldn’t tell you the score of the game because I went to socialize!  I wasn’t going to let a mere football game get in the way of my socializing! 

I will never forget this one very fun and special evening.  Two of my good friends, from my youth group, and I had a wonderful time Christmas shopping. Even though we were mature High Schoolers, we went to visit Santa and have our picture taken with him!  On Valentine’s Day, one of the guys in my youth group sent me a flower!  It was so special to feel accepted, included and normal!

When I was in High School, I was in Special Ed classes and mainstreamed (put into regular classes.)  My Special Ed teacher was absolutely amazing!  She went above and beyond the call of duty!  She would do special things with the whole class on weekends! For example, she took us to a park to go swimming (I discovered on that outing that you DO NOT USE BABY OIL FOR SUN PROTECTION, THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE!) and I remember going to her house for a party! 

My Senior year I took an acting class! I would go with the Speech and Debate team and compete in the Duet Acting category and I’m proud to tell you that my partner and I won at least one ribbon; I actually think we won at least one more! 

Despite the hardships, and with the help of the good, I did manage to graduate.  I can now look back on my High School days with a new appreciation for all the ways God was with me.  He used the bad things to make me stronger and more compassionate and he blessed me with true friends amidst a crowd of insecure, sometimes cruel, classmates.  I am glad that those were not the best years of my life.  My life has only gotten better and sweeter with more wonderful friends than I can count, meaningful work to do, a family that sticks together through thick and thin and an ever increasing joy in my relationship with my Heavenly Father!