They would stare harshly, awaiting a reply I couldn’t give, nor that I knew how to give…
My teachers…
I would stare back nervously with nothing to say.
What was I supposed to be thinking to say?
Nothing would come.
Sometimes they would scorn and insult as if they thought this would illicit an answer that I truly couldn’t come up with. Others gave up and when our eyes would meet, the failure would reflect back to me in their looks and glances.
As time went on, I grew more nervous and incapable.
Many letters came to my parents and many conferences with them trying to brainstorm plans and ideas to help me be responsive and actually do my work.
I would either not bother with the work because I didn’t know what to do; my mind was always either racing, or just elsewhere, or I would intentionally not turn papers and projects in because of the fear breathing down my neck and waiting to swallow me hole at the thought of presenting them.
I just knew that I couldn’t. There was no way.
I didn’t belong there. I didn’t fit. I was slow. I was stupid, or at least that’s how I would subconsciously start responding to any and every situation I came across.
Pain and fear seemed to be my only companions at the time; or at least they seemed to be the only things that believed in me enough to be a constant.
People scared me. I didn’t know when I was going to upset someone or disappoint them.
I couldn’t focus. I was a bad kid who lacked discipline.
My whole life all I could hear was how much discipline I needed or should’ve gotten.
Was the torment not enough?
What did God want from me?
Except, God wasn’t the problem.
I found myself recently, for the first time, actually imagining myself going back in time and feeling sorry for that little girl. I wish I could hold her and tell her that she was special, that she was loved, and that it was going to be ok, that God has a plan.
I wish I could just go back to every moment that seemed overwhelming, intimidating, and unfair to that little girl just to be able to be beside her, to gently squeeze her hand, look at her with the love she couldn’t feel but desired in the depths of her soul to feel, and tell her to keep pushing through and showing up and it would get better.
Instead, that little girl hid. She kept flunking out. She kept sitting in her bedroom, watching her movies, reading her books, and engaging in her obsessions, where it was safe; isolation.
She would lay awake at night, staring up at the blotchy shadows of the popcorn ceiling, lips trembling, eyes red, heart racing, and feeling smothered as if there wasn't enough oxygen on the earth to save her, terrified of the future, feeling as if death was always knocking at her door.
Even though so much time was wasted…it wasn’t.
God was with her every step.
That girl would grow to be me. And even though my life doesn’t look as if I feel it should, I hold on to hope.
God’s love, grace, strength, and mercy has carried me every moment and will continue until my very last breath.
It’s because of Him that I’ve made it through every failure, rejection, and mistake and it’s because of His love that I will continue to persevere.
When others couldn’t understand, and when I couldn’t…He did.
❤️