Eighteen years ago has a way of feeling like yesterday. Since I graduated from college in May, this is my first year not going back to school since that big first day eighteen years ago. Needless to say, I've been feeling especially nostalgic lately. The day before my first day, my parents had taken me to school to do a walk through, so I would have no trouble finding my classroom when I arrived at school for the first time. I suppose they didn't want me to get lost. Looking back, it seems like more of an insult to my five year old intelligence, since there was one door to walk through and only two classrooms to choose from, but I remember shaking in my wee little boots, making it completely necessary. My classroom was the second door on the right. We went over it. My parents drew maps. It was pretty impossible to get lost. Walk through the door and go in the second door on the right. Cake walk, or so I thought. With confidence, I put on the corduroy jumper my Mom had picked out for me to wear the next morning and rode off on the bus for that big first day. As the bus stopped to let us off, the confidence grew. I went through the steps my parents had explained the day before. Second door on the right. Easy peasy, I almost remember thinking to myself. The confidence faded as I realized the bus dropped us off at a different door. I was small, surrounded by first-fifth graders, and had no clue where I was. I was overwhelmed and left with very little confidence. The maps, the walk through, everything that had prepared me for this point was out the window. Not easy peasy. Not a cake walk. I would have hyperventilated if I knew what hyperventilating was. I stood at the end of that hallway for a long time before a kind, upper elementary student from my church came along and rescued me from my apparent, first day of kindergarten demise. She took me where I needed to go, and all was well at the happy end of the hallway; the place I knew from the walk through and maps. It just took a minute of being overwhelmed before I was able to happily settle in where I was supposed to be.
Overwhelming first days aren't just for kindergarteners. At the beginning of the summer, I had some overwhelming first days, first weeks and months, even. As it turns out, moving fifteen hours away from most of the people you love, setting up camp, getting a new job, and preparing for marriage, is a tad overwhelming. Everything that had prepared me for this point in my life, was out the window. No easy peasy. No cake walk. It wasn't that all the things taking place in my life weren't giant blessings, but it was a huge, in-my-face transition that I wasn't as prepared for as I thought I was. I played tough, but things were tricky. I missed home a lot. My new job at church had me on edge a lot. My Mom's texts about wedding stuff stressed me out a lot. I spent time reading and writing down my overwhelmed thoughts at Starbucks a lot. But now as I glance back on my overwhelming first months, creating a new life for myself in a place I'm not so familiar with, I see the beautiful ways God works amongst the chaotic and overwhelming moments of life. Now, I am at peace in so many different areas. The wedding is done and life as newlyweds has begun, no less overwhelming, but I do feel peace. I feel settled at work and had my first training with volunteers, who were receptive and willing to be on board with my vision. I don't think I will ever stop missing home, but the heartache is less frequent (plus, packages and FaceTime help). The Starbucks sessions will never stop, but I do have less overwhelming thoughts to fill my journals with.
My kindergarten mind was only able to feel overwhelmed, but looking back on that day now, I see how God so perfectly placed that friendly face in my path to rescue me from my dire situation. Some may say God doesn’t work like that. But I have every bit of faith that he does. I think God’s hand is in every one of our day to day conundrums, especially in moments when we are standing in a crowd of tall kids and sinking in overwhelming chaos. It is in those moments that we need to trust. We need to have big faith that God is going to come through and give us peace. I am well aware that this is not the end of my overwhelming journey; in fact, it is more like the beginning. I do, however, know that I have a big God. A God who created me and knows the very number of hairs on my head. I recently read that we are not informed of this in scripture to make God out to be a creep, but to prove just how much he knows us. If he knows us that well, surely he cares about us more than we can even think or imagine. Life is going to be tricky and overwhelming sometimes. Missing home and the people I love is going to hurt. Working with people is not always going to be easy. Finding an apartment is going to take longer than we hoped. I'm going to run out of money on my Starbucks gift card. Marriage isn't full of rainbows and floating hearts. Its going to get chaotic, it's going to get overwhelming, and I'm sure somedays I'll feel like I'm standing in a hallway of really tall kids. This time around, I don't have a really kind fourth grader to guide me to the happy end of the hallway; I have a God. A God who provides peace. A God who knows me and cares for me. A God who will lead me as I happily settle in where I am supposed to be.
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