timehop is the best and the worst app. nostalgia is a double edged sword. today however I got a bit of happiness from my 9th grade photo booth days back when white stitched jeans were the bomb. still, it also struck me as bittersweet as my freshman and sophomore year are the best years of my life to boot.
my highschool experience was the opposite of what is the average for a John Hughes-esque American teen in that the graph went the opposite way it does for most people which is kind of a bummer.
it's okay though, I should've always known that it can't all be wedding cake (spoon reference). This time period in my life is completely different than I ever expected it to be in that no scenario of my post-high school plans included staying home unemployed and not going no to school for a year with my mission papers at a stand still.
So I've had to adjust my expectations for this timeframe in my mind; this is the chapter of my life where I'm learning that God's plans and timeline for me don't always match up with what I had in mind. This is me learning that sometimes you need to have faith in Him and His timing and that it won't always match up with yours. "My ways higher than your ways". (Isaiah 55:9)
What can make it even harder is that what I want to be doing is good- I want to go out and serve Him and His children in the mission field, and then to be told to put all of that on pause and wait can be extremely trying. I thought that I had already gone through that trial back in 2010 when we applied for the Nauvoo Pageant for the first time and were denied even though I felt extremely inspired that we were meant to go. We did end up getting accepted and going the next year, and it was the most spiritually enriching experience I've ever had in my life.
They say that when that happens it can become revealed to you later why it panned out that way and why Heavenly Father had it planned differently than you expected; but it's also true that sometimes you never find out, and you just have faith that He knew what he was doing. I never did find out why we didn't get accepted the first year, but my family and i theorize that we just weren't physically and spiritually prepared to go yet, and paired with my faith, that's good enough for me.
Now here I am learning that trials aren't like the chicken pox, even if you go through it once, doesn't mean you won't have to again. I don't know why I'm not ready to serve yet, but until I am I'm preparing best that I can so that when it's time I'll be ready.
Here's to hoping that I'll have better time, and I know I will. I have faith that one day, maybe soon, I'll have a year or two that are as good or even better than my freshman and sophomore year. and that it will be a richer more divine happiness now that I am wiser and stronger through adversity.
Cheers to growth; cheers to better times ahead.
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