Another Year

Well, the summer has just flown by. About the speed of a jet plane, I would say.

I have to admit, while I like hanging with friends and not having homework as much as anyone else, I'm excited for school to start again.

In an odd kind of way, school gives me purpose. It gives me something to do, something to work for.

But, for most people, the only good part of school is that you get to see your friends every day.

I realized a few days ago that I had been living an extremely hypocritical life. I always tell people to live for Christ, and let your life be an example for Him.

But, I wasn't doing that. I can't remember once having a serious spiritual conversation with my friends from school. I don't remember mentioning Jesus, or what God was doing in my life. And I go to a Christian school!

This year at school, I'm going to challenge myself to be more open about my faith. If my whole life is supposed to be for God, school needs to be included as well.

It's harder for public school kids to be open about their faith. Where I go to school, pretty much everyone believes basically the same thing I do. But, in public schools, there is a wide range of spiritual beliefs. Even those who say they're Christian may not be living out their faith.

See, I want to be distinguished. I want to be that girl who is really living for Christ. When people talk about Tori, I want them to say, "Oh, yeah, that girl who's crazy about living for God."

I don't want to be known as the composer girl, the smart girl, the girl who's good at writing. I want to be the girl that lives for her Savior.

Crash Landing

My youth pastor said right before we came home that we were all on a mission trip high. And, to prepare ourselves to be injected into society again.

I didn't believe him. I didn't feel like I was on a spiritual high. I felt like I could hear the Hallelujah Chorus and might start crying I was so happy to be home.

Even after I was home with my family again, I didn't feel like I'd come down from a high. I felt like I'd never been on a high, and that now I was just filled with more passion, and more drive to do God's will.

What I didn't realize is that that was the high.

The first few days home, I spent planning ways to help special needs kids, especially the ones I'd met in Peru. I started planning for the Christmas Warrior project.

About five days after being back, I crashed. In Peru, I was used to my days being packed full of doing God's will and loving on "unlovable" kids. Here, there's no orphanage to visit. Here, there's not hundreds of kids roaming the streets.

I crashed big time. What am I doing here? Can this really be where God wants me? Why waste my time going to school, learning things like Algebra and Chemistry? I don't need those things to love on kids!

While, I'm still struggling with the crash from the "mission trip high" I was on, I've realized that, no, I'm not going to be loving on orphans every day here. But, I can show God's very same love by loving on my brothers. I can show his love for children by volunteering in my church's kids ministry.

I may not be able to get people to come to Christ by doing the Hoedown Throwdown in the street and giving them a cheap bracelet here, but I can be open with my friends about God and Jesus. I can let my words and actions show His love.

See, the battle ended in Peru, but the war is still happening right now. In school, at home with our families, on the bus, at church, with our friends. We let our guard down here, and we allow Satan's minions to infiltrate us from the inside. There is a war here in America, a war that we are losing because we refuse to see it. It's time for Christians to put on our armor, and take up God's sword. It's time to fight.

Fighting Boredom

Let's face facts. School is boring.

Maybe not everything. I, for instance, love my English class. But, other than that, I usually feel like I'm going to fall asleep.

I can't help it. Whether it's the tangent of a circle or the inside of a flower, it's just not interesting to me. Maybe to some, but not to me.

So, what do we do? How do we fight off this oppressive sense that we would rather be anywhere but here, in school? I think I've found the answer.

I love to learn about history, but taking notes is nobody's favorite thing to do. My history teacher will give us packets of notes that we have to highlight as she reads to us. It's the last class of the day, and it's extremely hard for me to focus. My foot taps, my mind wanders, and I want nothing more than to go home. But, today, I tried something new. And it worked.

About a page through our notes, I decided to try something. I made my own notes. As we were reading along, I underlined things that gave me thoughts, and wrote the thoughts down next to them. Some of them include:

Pirates of the Caribbean (East India Trading Company)

British pants (Ponce de Leon)

A mad face (African slave trade)

The song "The Age of Not Believing" (I thought I could probably fit in "The Age of Exploration")

That made class so much more interesting, thinking up what kind of weird connections I could make. But, if your class is so boring you can't even do that - I've got another solution.

The other day, I read the true story of a girl named Maggie, age 12, who lived in Uganda. She walked 7 miles every morning, and 7 miles home every night to get the kind of education we get in elementary school. But, soon, her single mother couldn't afford to send her to school anymore, and any dreams she had of a career or rising above her situation were crushed.

I don't think that we, in America, truly understand the value of our education, how lucky we are to be able to learn what we can learn for free.

As I sat in Geometry today (which is in no way interesting at all), I kept reminding myself that kids in Africa would give up a limb for this class. That kept me paying attention. I realized how selfish I'd been in the past, wishing I could go home and get on Facebook, when some kid in Africa was wishing he could be where I was - school.

Just thinking about how many children would give up their homes for an education like mine, really made me focus, and really try to enjoy my schoolday.

I suggest you try it. We, as a whole, need to realize how lucky we are to have school.

Beware! It's... MONDAY!!!

As I slowly, blearily opened and rubbed my eyes this morning, trying to tune out the annoying beeping of my alarm clock, my first coherent thought was:

Eew. School.

And now, for a short commercial brake! (An advertisement for a TV show comes on)

Just the whisper of its name strikes fear in teenagers everywhere! Every Sunday night, they feel its presence creeping up on them - Beware! It's coming! it's almost here! Sleep while you can!!! It's... IT'S.... MONDAY!!!

Oh, yes, magnificently malicious Monday. Just saying it's name leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Okay, so I'm exaggerating just a bit, but nobody likes Mondays. For teenagers, it's the start of a new school week. ANOTHER school week. A week of waking up at the crack of dawn, doing stupid, pointless homework, and sitting through lectures. Not really things that one would look forward to.

Even adults despise Mondays. Now they have to get up for work and do whatever their boring job is. And even if it's not boring, chances are they don't like it. I mean, have you ever seen an adult hop out of bed with a huge grin on their face laughing and saying, "YES!!! I get to go to work today!!!" Wait, let me answer that for you.

No.

But there's also GOOD things about Mondays. On Monday, I get to see my friends again. On Monday, I have something to do other than lay around being bored. Without Mondays, school would never start! Now, you may be thinking that's a good thing, but without school we'd all be uneducated neanderthals scrounging for food in the dirt. So, as a matter of fact, there ARE good things about Mondays. You just have to look a little harder to find them.

The hit TV show MONDAY about a horrible monster that consumed teenagers and adults is receiving less and less views. People found out that the monster wasn't all bad, and started to think that the conflict in the story just wasn't worth their time. It seems MONDAY has just lost its ferocity.

Putting It In Perspective

So it's the eve of the last day before Spring Break, right? And I'm sitting at the dining room table about to have a breakdown. I can feel the tears coming, the frustration bottling up inside me - it's coming.

Why, you ask, can I be so upset when we only have ONE DAY left until Spring Break?

Because I had too much to do.

Science project, giant math review packet, reading an assigned book, and decorating my "Tennessee Can" for History.

So my buddy came over and we got the science project out of the way, but what about all this other stuff?

The clock read 8:14 p.m. and there was no way I was doing all of this and getting enough sleep. Being a perfectionist, the concept I had to integrate now was foreign and unwanted. This was....

PRIORITIZING (put your tasks in order from most important to least important, and get as many done as you can. Forget the rest.)

So.... science project - done. Math packet - yeah, I needed to get that done (giant test the next day). Reading - I'd do it in homeroom tomorrow. And, by that time folks, I'd be drop-dead tired. So, you know what that means. Yep, I'd have to drop... THE TENNESSEE CAN!!!

Oh, the horror! I would be sent to detention for not getting this done! Well, I thought, at least they can't send me until next week.

I walked into Social Studies class the next day expecting the worst. "Mr. Harley," I said, "I'm really sorry but I left my Tennessee Can at home."

And you know what he said? NOT that I would be sent to detention or ISS or ALC, but that I could just turn it in when we got back. You know what that means...

ALL THAT WORRYING WAS FOR NOTHING!!!

It was all in vain! So next time you think something's going to be the end of the world, put it in perspective. When I'm an adult, I'm not going to be reminiscing about that one time in 8th grade when I forgot my Tennessee Can. If you don't think it'll be important twenty years from now, it shouldn't be overly important now. So just take my advice...

Put the things in your life in perspective.

First Day Back

So you just had two weeks plus some off of school. You slept late, hung out with friends, saw some extended family, and got some presents. And then it drops like a bomb on your ride.

School's back.

It's a truly depressing thought. Back to waking up early, annoying teachers, and homework.

This morning you probably woke to your bleeping alarm. You probably pressed the sleep button and hunkered back down, eyes closed, curled up in your blanket. Then it totally rained on your day when, five minutes later, it went off again. You groggily got dressed and brushed your teeth. Maybe you took a shower or ate breakfast. And then, whoops, you totally missed the bus and you're very ticked mom has to drive you to school. In Social Studies class, you got unfairly called out for not paying attention. That minor project in Science just slipped your mind. At lunch, you spilled chocolate milk on your favorite white t-shirt. And to top it all off, you bit the dust and did a face plant on your way out the building.

That's a pretty bad day, if you ask me.

So the question is, what do we do about days when nothing goes right? Well, let's see a few examples:

Example #1:

When Jacob got home from school that day, he sulked. He sulked and sulked and sulked. He pushed his brother, snapped at his mom, and back-talked his Dad. During dinner, he didn't join in the conversations. Instead he sat and moped and played with his food. At the football game, he missed every single throw. The way he saw it, that was just one more thing to mope about in his horrible life. Finally, his dad said he'd had enough of this sulking and that Jacob was grounded until he had a better attitude.

Example #2:

Emily sat and stared at the mound of homework that she had. Teachers weren't supposed to give this much homework right off the bat, were they? But, she guessed, the homework wasn't going to do itself. Emily sat down with a snack bar and a bottle of Coke and started to work. It took her a long time to accomplish it, but she did anyway. She didn't want to go to the football game either. But she had signed up for the cheer squad, and it was her responsibility to be loyal to her squad. They didn't even win the game, but Emily was glad that she'd cheered for them. If they had no support, how would they win anyway? Her parents congratulated her for doing such a good job.

So what was the difference between Emily and Jacob? Only their attitudes! The difference was how they saw the situation. That's all it takes to turn a bad day into a good one! Now, that can be the toughest thing in the world to do sometimes. But you should at least try. No one wants to hang around a mopey, pessimistic person anyway.

Now, I've done my fair share and more of sulking and moping. And, more often than not, I crumble when my life gets hard. But you can always pray for God to give you a better attitude. And don't think that after you pray you'll suddenly be happy and everything. You have to work at it. You have to struggle every second to find the good side of a situation. And even if you can't find the good in something, it's probably just hiding. Remember...

God always means for things to happen. And they're all good. Maybe we just can't see it yet.