Real Education

Dear Younger Me:

There is so much you will not remember.  You imagine that the events of life are so critical.  But I can tell you that from this view, there is so much that is quite blurry.  You remember the highlights, and the friends that you've kept up with, but really the rest is a blur.  Some of it is even gone from the memory banks.

You might remember some faces, but the names are gone.  Then you hear someone referenced but you can't remember the face.  Or see them on facebook and can't de-age them.  How can it be 20? 25 years?

You will feel young and like YOU haven't aged, but then you find that you are congratulating a high-school classmate on the birth of their grandchild.  It is bizarre!

So don't fret too much on "the quiz you just have to ace," or "the party that everyone is going to," or "everyone is wearing" this or that.  SO many details will not matter in five, ten, fifteen years, and they will simply be non-existent when you look back.

Enjoy your time with friends.  Invest in relationships that you'll want to keep up with after high school, after college, after grad school.  So choose wisely.  Don't spread yourself too thin--because shallow relationship won't make it.

Learn to be a good friend.

Study hard and do your best, but learn to learn.  And learn to solve problems, and learn to break projects down to manageable pieces, and learn to work with others (especially if you don't naturally get along with them).  Those are the skills that will serve you no matter what you do.

Whatever "job" you have someday will train you.  You will learn how to do what you are called to do as you do it.  That will include things you may never imagine.  Like being a homemaker and a mother.  Like serving in ministry in your church and elsewhere.

All that you are learning in school will help you with all of that.  Don't let anyone tell you anything is in vain, or worse, will be "a waste."  

God has a plan for your future.  It is bigger than you can even imagine.  It will look nothing like that future you envision--it is better and you will be so grateful for it.  The desires of your heart will be re-oriented to align with the desires of the One who has made you.

And you will see with much more clarity what really matters.

**Click here for index of other posts in this #write31days series.