Have you ever gotten extremely excited over a piece of mail? Maybe it was a really big check, or a birthday card. Whatever it was, it probably had you standing there with an envelope, desperately trying to get your finger to slide underneath the annoying little flap so you could throw it aside and grasp hold of the treasure awaiting you. Well, today I had one of those moments. I finally received my official drivers permit! (And it was plastic!) Although the shiny plastic didn't change the fact that I have a really big head in my picture, I was stoked. I can legally drive! But then I thought to myself..."I'm already 15"....
15? 15?! I'm half way to 30. If i doubled my entire life, I could be married, with kids and an entirely different life. But instead of reminiscing in the future, I began to look back. Yes, I'm a teen. I still have the rest of my life to experience hardships. But looking back at the life I've had, I feel much older. I've learned so much from the things that I have gone through, especially from the big 'D' word. Unfortunately there are so many kids who have divorced families. I'm one of those kids. No, my parents weren't drug addicts, nor was I abandoned at the age of 3, but divorce hurts. Real bad. My whole world was completely torn apart when I was just shy of 11. The perfect world i thought I lived in turned out to be one big giant lie. When the two most beloved people in your life.....the two humans who nurtured you, who held you, who loved you....look you in your eyes and say that one sentence that haunts the minds of millions of children, it tears you apart.
" Your mom and I have decided to stay away from each other for a while...."At that very moment when the words left my daddy's mouth, something just clicked. I wasn't going to let anyone in the whole world know how much the divorce hurt me. No one was going to see me bleed. I wasn't going to let a single human being watch me suffer. I was going to get through this on my own. And no matter how bad it stung, I was going to move on and forget everything. There was no way I would let myself break.
Pretty soon there was a new man in the house. He was great to be honest, but deep down I hated him. Not that I truly wished him dead, but how dare he just walk right into my life and act like my father? But I wasn't going to let him know I felt that way. Time passed, and things began to change. They got married. We moved. Without warning, my entire life changed. I was torn away from the town, friends, and everything else i had grown up with and loved. When I started a new school in a new town....I just began to give up. On just about everything. Yea, from the outside I seemed alright. I did everything I could to paint on my 'happy mask'. But deep, deep down, I no longer had a drive to excel. In school work, in friends, in the violin, in family relationships. If the things I loved were just going to get ripped away from me, then why even try? My mindset was so far from being in the right place as I began to grow up.
Our family had been going to different churches throughout my life, so yea, I knew about God. I called myself a Christian. I grew up making cutesy little crafts with the verses glued on all crooked and singing 'This Little Light of Mine'. But to this day I don't believe I was a true Christian. A few months after I started my new school, we began a new church. It was called Joy. And trust me, I had little, if none of that in my life. I didn't really want anything to do with this new group of people or their strange rules.....or the way they jumped and clapped and danced around during worship. But, as time went on....literally years... I began to transform.
Through the people, the classes, the fellowship, and most importantly the love, I began to open my eyes. I started to realized just how blessed I really was. A man who could have chosen to leave behind the responsibility of a new wife and two bratty children actually stayed. He loved us in a way I didn't think was possible for someone who wasn't my biological dad. He took us in, he provided, he cherished every moment, he took us on new adventures, and he loved us with an indescribable love. Over time, I accepted him as more than a step dad. He was my dad. And even beyond that, a friend. Someone who taught me something new every day. Someone who I knew without a doubt would protect me, even if he had to die trying. Most kids who come from a divorced family, and even some kids who's true parents are still together, would give almost anything for a dad like mine. If it wasn't for this guy, I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. I'm part of a church community and family that I know really love me. I'm spending my teen years under the wing of this Godly, protective group of people. I'm growing and learning and stretching every single day. And above everything else..... I am beginning to knit myself into the closest relationship with God I've ever had.
If this much can happen to me in a short 15 years...how much more do I have to look forward to? When I double this 15 years, how much more will I have grown? Who will Taylor be, even in the next 6 months?
Ephesians 5:15- "Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."
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