Why Lord... do I need to keep going back to High School?

Today we brought the cows and calves across our county road from the pasture on the other side of the road to the one around our place... Ruth and the kids came over as did Paul .  .... They were happy to see each other for a small time in the middle of the day, and hugged and kissed as they parted.Ruth, like I, was a wallflower all through her school years.  I thought that after I had made it through the agony of being alone and having no friends through much of my school years..."Well, I made it through that and it probably made me a better person for all the suffering day after day in my shyness, but now it is behind me... Thank Goodness!"  But then my oldest daughter would not want to get out of the car, when I would drop her off at school, because she was alone and shy!  That hurt even worse... if that is possible!  I was helpless to do anything for her and to relive it through your precious children was so awful!  She did get involved in more activities in High School and that helped some, but she still had no real friends and her social life was nil much like mine had been... from a parent's point of view... that isn't so bad, if they don't get too down about it.  This was one of Ruthies' High School Graduation pictures that I took... She had always loved lilacs and I think that it was so sweet that she wanted this for her graduation!  Talk about innocence and no thought that it is a bit like a wedding pose...  Too special and so Ruth!  I remember one time when she was smaller... she had come to me in tears about approaching a group  of girls playing some kind of a game and asking if she could join in... "They said no mom!"  All I could tell her is that she should look around and see if there were others like her that were left out and to ask them to play, and most importantly to remember how bad that made her feel and never do that to anyone else!  Hard lessons at a young age!I will be using random pictures that I have scanned of the kids when they were in High School, as I share today... John had a sister go into a cloistered monastery as he was in his first year of High School!  That was major! 

What got me going on all of this?  I attended an opening mass for those that are teaching religion this year.  I found myself once again surrounded by the uncomfortable feelings of the high school tensions.  I was asked by Fr to go and sit in an area where some boys were being loud and picking on some boys ahead of them and were texting on their cell phones... when I saw two of the boys poking a boy ahead of them over and over... I gave them a glare, and eventually went and sat between them.  I looked up to see some kids that I know are in a praise and worship group that they tried to get started singing loudly with their eyes closed and heads raised up... not caring if they were looked down upon for that, and I saw the opposite in many places among parents and kids... not singing or participating or just barely with their heads down like they were ashamed to be there worshiping their God!  I sensed the divisions among kids and those that are into the popularness and those that are on the outside, as I was... invisible!  4H and swimming were very big for the girls to get through high school!  Nancy had some friends through swimming that remain today, but she never dated or went to a prom... It was so wonderful to buy her first formal - her wedding dress!  And she was the most stunningly beautiful and happy bride! 

With all the emotions boiling within me... to see once again and be reminded of the difficulties of high school and getting through them to be able to be who you truly are once you get away from there and enter college or the work force!  I found that I was trapped in this "shy girl" tomb and I could not get out of it... when I moved to another state with my family, worked a year to become a resident of Minnesota, and started at the U of M... I broke out of my shell and became a new and improved version of Barb!I have shared about Susan... here she is in her sister, Maria's, prom dress... She went to prom her senior year with a bunch of girl friends and they went in the Matt bus!  They probably had the best time of anyone there!  And I have often wished that the prom was just a big class party where everyone dressed up and went!  This pairing up is for the birds!  They are way to young!

I find myself constantly with high school kids and reliving the agony with them of those years... I just can't get past it and sometimes wonder if I listened to the Lord wrong and he wanted me to be a high school teacher... like Nancy... rather than a nurse.  That would have been too much for me!  This way when I work retreats  - TEC - and come across young people 16 on up... I am not burnt out, but can be compassionate!  I have shared that there are now 3 young girls that I pray for each day as I pray the decade of the rosary for Susan... all 3 are girls that I met on the last TEC retreat that I worked with Pat in August!  The first one we had been back to since John came down with cancer 16 months ago!  I love TEC and my heart is rended by the lives that some of these young people have already been exposed to!  So I pray for them as I do my own!Oh, my beautiful Susan!  This was taking her and a friends graduation pictures in Camden...  Her brother wrote his first story after she graduated, and left him as the youngest alone in high school with no other siblings... It was called "Mama Bluey"... it was about the old blue minivan that she would drive him to school in and how they would play Christian music and "head bang" to it as they drove along.  How he looked up to her and how she would walk through the halls and be happy and say hi to people along the way.  How she brought light into the darkness, and made it out to be the nothing that it truly is...all the clicks and sad and lonely people... in the light of day they are small and pointless to get all tied in knots about.  She would reach out to those alone in the lunch room and not have to sit with her friends... much like Maria's boyfriend, Matt Mulder, had done ahead of her!Once again those 4 H days at the fair...those were good family times and the kids still like to be here for that! 

Pat and I are back at teaching religion - Confirmation together!  We had to take the last year off with all that was going on with John, but now he started back to school yesterday and so we are free to teach once again!  I had some good friends give me hugs after mass and tell me that they are glad that we are back teaching, because the kids need us.  One mom that homeschools 5 told me that it is not time for her to be teaching, but she sees that her job is to pray for the kids and their teachers and I so agreee!  There is such a need and so much that a lot of these kids have never encountered their faith!  How I long to give them a glimpse of Jesus with his loving arms open to them and the wonderful gift that their Church is to them to help them walk through life in Happiness and Joy!Maria did actually date in HS... the only one!  She broke up with him before they headed off to college, but felt that she wanted to leave the Catholic Church after dating him and questioning... I have shared her story about our insisting that she go to a Catholic College and asking a seminarian about the nearest Efree Church...they had a talk that changed her from weekly mass to daily mass and total embracing of her faith and her Catholic faith! 

I am aware that the Lord has given Pat and I many amazing tools to help us with our work with young people... formost in our eyes in the wonderful - Together Encounter Christ Retreat - that our diocese offers 5 times a year! WE both work as many as we can, and know that it is a way to share Christ with those that are at a crossroads in their lives...We see there those that are damaged and are like a bottomless pit of need for love and healing, and we see those that are solid in their faith and they come to help and to witness to their love of God and the work He has done in their lives!  Both of these are part of it and necessary...  One beautiful thing that is there is the acceptance of everyone!  The clicks and high school crap is not there!Maria's confirmation day - I told her on the way in that if she did not plan to remain Catholic...she should not be getting confirmed.  "This means that you are becoming a full member and are not going to leave!"

We were helped early on by Sr Anna Marie... then the principal of the Catholic School.... to know that there were wonderful faith filled events that the girls could go to in High School.. the festivals and the trips for the National Catholic Youth conferences were wonderful!  Please any of you parents encourage your kids to do these things... they were powerful for our kids and some were on the Diocesan Youth Council and that is a wonderful bunch of kids too!  They are the ones that put on the Jr Hi and Sr Hi Festivals!  They also make TEC retreats and then come back and work them over and over!  Then there is the NET team that is out of ST Paul!  WE just had a nephew travel all over the country this last year putting on Confirmation retreats in diocese from the West Coast to the East Coast! It stands for the National Evangelical Team... Locally Leah Delanghe was on it and is now graduated from Stubenville and is going to work for them as an adult behind the scenes!  It was wonderful to have these things available to the girls and John... he was on DYC for a couple years and it was great for him too!  Pat with his brothers showed cattle in 4 H and farming was something that Pat never questioned... he always knew that farming was for him, but was shy and felt that he couldn't meet anyone when he went straight into farming from high school... He was still married at 23 to a city girl come to the farm... me!  And the long distance thing was not an issue! 

For John it was a gift to have sisters to share his high school years with and when Susan graduated after a year alone... he had two teachers from his family there... Nancy became his English teacher and speech coach and Paul Lanoue, his brother in law, became his Ag teacher and FFA advisor!  Now he had the comfort(?) of having close relatives teaching and coaching him for 2 years!  Crazy fun!

Today I am just bouncing around and looking with heart in hand at the years that I feel are so hard... high school!  There are really no fond memories for me from those years and I know that flavors all that I feel now.  I am deeply compassionate and caring and wanting so badly to support and encourage them to turn to their faith and to discover the Way the Truth and the Life!On Sunday I received a call from a mother in desperate need!  She told me that I could share with you about her newly graduated daughter, Kelsey... asking you to join me in prayer for her "safe return and recovery."  Kelsey is now one of the young people that I pray for each day on my rosary along with my own kids...  I pray for her with Nancy, who works in an American Indian Alternative School in Mpls... as Kelsey has left home after being controlled by her boyfriend of 6 months and leaving home to be with him in Montana on the reservation he returned to after spending a year at her school here in Minnesota.  "Kelsey never dated and was content with that,"her mother shared with me,"he pursued her to date him for 5 months and then she did for her last 3 months of high school...they went to prom together.  Then he left for the reservation and we found out later that he was texting her 9 thousand times a month!"  She left them a note on the table and went to be with him and they have totally lost contact with her.... They feel that she is experiencing "stockholm syndrome"

Stockholm

Syndrome describes the behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, become sympathetic to their captors. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts, and afterwards refused to testify against their captors.

I would ask you to join me in prayer for Kelsey and her family... the crazy pressures of high school and that impressionable age that our innocent youth are at that point in their lives.  How we as parents have to fight to keep them away from harm... yet there are things that are taken out of our hands and we are helpless!  We need to fall to our knees and give it to Him! 

This is a letter they attempted to email to her and prayed for some kind of a word from her:

Kelsey: I do not know if you get these messages, but somehow it is a comfort just to write them. We love you more than life itself. There is nothing in this world we would not do for you. We pray we can be part of your life. We said the Rosary this morning for you on Grandpa's  Rosary. Octavia was on our laps and it almost seemed she knew she was part of this connection. We cannot hold you or talk to you, but we know God is with you holding you, and we also know he loves you even more than us. That is hard for a parent to comprehend because the love we have for you is so great, but he is holding you and loving you. You are his precious, precious child, and there is no other like you. He above us as parents and family has a special place in your heart. Please call us and let us know how you are, or write a letter. Love Mom and Dad

Lord, we trust in you and abandon our helplessness and fears and tensions to you.  WE can only turn to our faith in you and your Holy Mother and the angels and saints standing with us in the trenches of life!  WE are never alone and ask that you fill us with peace as we face the hardships of each day and embrace our crosses of life!  Jesus we trust in you!  Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb