Polyester Pants and Perfectly Feathered Hair

It was time.

The hot Louisiana summer days would now melt into miserably sticky school days.   

Middle school.

 Jr. High as we called it back in the day.

Yeah, eons ago. When 6th grade was part of elementary school.

I was filled with a kinda sorta happy-sad-scared-excited-worried-nervous energy.

I had ridden the same bus. I think it was bus #6. I always sat close to the center and slid in next to the window. Not because the bus would be full by the time we got to school. More because it was the best place to see how close our bus driver got to hitting signs and street light poles while turning tight corners. Mere centimeters. No kidding! That close!

There I sat, in my polyester stretchy knit pants and my perfectly feathered hair. Don't laugh, if you had been on that bus that day you would have sported the same stylish look.

The bus pulled in and kids were everywhere. Old friends who had missed each other over the long summer break were gathered together in small frenzied circles. That's right, missed each other. This was back when phones were cemented to the wall and you had to push seven numbers to make a call. Facebook was not even a glimmer in Mark Zuckerberg's eye...Mark Zuckerberg was not yet even a glimmer in his parents eyes...

I'm not sure why I did it.

The fear of the coming monsoon of algebraic formulas that my mind was not wired to understand?

The anxiety over switching classes...finding new rooms in a new school filled with new teachers?

There's really no explaining it.

I stood at my middle-of-the-bus seat.

Stepped into the aisle and walked toward the door.

Arrived at the top step and looked out at all the kids.

And I did it.

I jumped.

Yupp, I jumped.

Having totally not thought this through, I miscalculated my height and how high I jumped and how low the roof of the bus was...

BAM!

I hit my head on the top edge of the bus door and landed on my heals in the pea gravel surrounding the circle where the buses parked. I can still hear the swooshing sound of all those little rocks as they scattered under me as I landed on my butt and careened to a devastating stop.

The rest is a blur of little tweeting birdies circling my head and muffled laughter.

At that moment I had no idea just how lucky I was.

This was the pre-cell phone era.

The time in history when no stupid thing we did was recorded for all the world to see. It was that golden age when we would sit for hours with our cassette recorder near the radio waiting to hear our favorite Bay City Rollers song so we could push record/play and pray fervently that our bratty little siblings wouldn't burst into the room and ruin our prize.

I know, you're wondering when I will get to the point of this story.

That moment in my life is etched in my memory, but I dare say my friends who watched the painful spectacle unfold that day...and laughed with the rest of the crowd...don't even remember it.

That morning I was so sure my career in Jr. High was over the very day it began. I just knew this impetuous leap would follow me into High School and I would be forever known as THAT girl.

Decades later, I am here at my computer, and the poetic words of Psalm 103 are playing in my heart. My shame, transgressions, sins, stupidity--God took them and tossed them as far as the east is from the west. As far as the sunrise is from the sunset.

There is no record of that morning and there is no record of my lifetime of sin.

The moment I sought forgiveness for my sins and asked Jesus to be my Savior He gathered up all the garbage in my soul and tossed it out.

God is grace and mercy. God is rich in love. God's love is ever and always present. He doesn't treat me as I deserve to be treated. He has separated me from my sins.

My point? Your past mistakes, years ago or yesterday, don't define you when you are God's child. Don't allow the enemy (or people) to pound you with them. They are pea gravel under your feet.

That girl in the polyester pants and perfectly feathered hair--yeah, that's me.

His grace covers me.