I am driving and I see a young high school girl walking down the sidewalk and i think..oh you poor thing -- if only you knew now what you will know in 15 years. Oh my dear self if only you knew at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 what you know now.
How your perspective would be so different, how confidently you could have strode out of that horribly abusive relationship. How you wouldn't have always said "I will never have children" out of fear that something terrible would happen to them as it happened to you. How you could have seen having a perfect 4.0 in college does not mean your life will be perfect...how i would have not cared about performing to earn my parents love as they are so far from perfect themselves as i have so found. How i would have walked around brilliantly and confidently and so seeing the big picture and hopelessness and feelings of helplessness would be powerless over me.
But that is not how life is constructed. We go through those vulnerable teenage years without the benefit of life experience, without realizing what others think is in reality so unimportant. We don't know that the things we give such heavy weight to are so forgettable, why do they seem like such life and death.
So i remember that now, the things that seem so lung compressing, anxiety producing, may not be all that important in a years time, and i whisper a quiet prayer to God for wisdom - to give me eyes for what will matter in my legacy and which issues will blow away like the dandelion seeds, disappearing in the wind forever.
