The seasons are changing and school is back in session. Each year as I hear the brakes on the school bus squeak as they trek through the neighborhood I remember my childhood. I moved a lot as a child. I don’t mean that I was active (I was) but that I physically changed locations, houses, and schools a lot growing up. People often ask me if that was hard. I’m sure it was, but honestly, I don’t fully know because it’s all I knew. I learned a lot about people, regions and cultures even just moving across the southern states. With all the challenges I faced I am so grateful for the experiences that shaped me. I learned to be sensitive to the new kid in the room. I learned how to pay attention to how people interact around you when no one really knows you. You find out a lot about people when you observe how they treat you when they have no idea what gifts or talents you have to offer. Being the new kid has its advantages. But it also has its share of pain…
To give you a little perspective I was in the 8th grade in central Alabama, 9th grade in Kentucky, 10th grade in Florida, and 11th grade in a south Alabama. Those were some of the hardest years of my life. I was basically the same person in each of those years but I was received very differently in every single location. One year I was the popular kid and everyone got along with me well. The very next year I was a nobody. In one location I identified with the athletes and in another location I identified with the musicians. Though it made me a more aware, diverse person, nothing prepared me for the jump from 10th grade to 11th grade.
In the 10th grade I couldn’t find a friend to save my life. I literally was the guy that sat in the lunchroom by myself. Nobody cared that in Alabama I had a lot of friends. No one cared that when I was in Kentucky I was really good at basketball and people there thought that was cool. I was alone and no one was interested in who I was or what I had to offer. Have you ever been there before? I have and it’s really hard. Nothing “sealed the deal” on my loser status more than the day I sat alone at the lunch table as a sophomore and a group of kids started throwing their french fries at me, simply because I was the new kid that didn’t have a friend and was an easy target. (Read my post It’s Worth The Weeds)
You Got A Friend In Me
Needless to say, 10th grade was hard. I was broken and wondered why things had to be so challenging. Was I really that difficult of a person to like? Looking back, I’m grateful that I had no one else to run to in that season. I played my guitar for 4-5 hours a day, not knowing that the training I got in that year would equip me to go into full-time music ministry in the future. I learned so much about myself in that year, as well. I would walk into the soybean field behind my house, climb up on top of a hay bale and talk to God about my loneliness and my pain. I learned how to take my problems TO God, instead of running away from Him. Much of that was simply because He was all I had. Sometimes you don’t realize that God is all you need until He is truly all you have. It feels like a burden, but it is such a gift. (Read my post called “Loving Hearts Bleed“)
The next year I moved to south Alabama where within months I met my future wife, won a local talent show, and was elected Senior class president of my public high school graduating class of nearly 400 students. What a crazy turn of events?! The irony is I don’t know that I was that much of a different person than I was the year before when I sat alone dodging french fries? Surely I had learned some lessons in humility. Certainly I had matured and grown some but, in truth, I was pretty much the same guy. Same person, different time, and different setting. Maybe you are too?
Sometimes your circumstances have very little to do with you. Sometimes your challenges are not because you are living in rebellion or sin. There are seasons where you simply must go through the fire so you can be refined and come out gold. There is no short-cut to the process. Will you hate yourself or make dramatic changes to try and modify the situation or will you simply keep taking steps forward in humility and trust that God is for you and not against you? Those are hard questions to navigate in the midst of pain but have tremendous impact on your life. (Read my post on Changing Seasons)
There’s Gold In Them Hills
What did I learn from those hard school years? First, give yourself some grace. You’ll find that when you do, you’ll have more grace to give others. If you are super hard on yourself, you certainly won’t be easy on anyone else. As you continue to move forward in humility, you’ll find yourself more patient with others. You don’t have to be everyone’s favorite everywhere. Just know you are loved by God, right where you are. Second, there is so much in the person beside you that you have the opportunity to discover. That person that doesn’t speak English very well may actually be super funny and fun to know but they are in a setting that they aren’t able to fully be themselves and maybe in a place that they aren’t very well received. Mine the gold. That quiet old man on the park bench may have once been the life of the party?! Same person, different time and different setting. You won’t know unless you make the effort to find out. Take a minute and enjoy the people around you. There are diamonds in the rough everywhere you turn. Will you take the time to uncover their worth? I can tell you after being the new kid so much in my life, it has become one of my favorite things to do!
Walk slowly through the crowd. Mine the gold that is buried inside people all around you today who have so much to offer but may be in a different setting or season that is keeping them from being revealed for all they have to offer. You look like Jesus when you do!
From the Bible
If you receive a prophet as one who speaks for God, you will be given the same reward as a prophet. And if you receive righteous people because of their righteousness, you will be given a reward like theirs. 42 And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” – Matthew 10:41-21 NLT
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor. – James 4:10 NLT
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. – Hebrews 13:10 NIV