From there to here

I'm sitting in a dorm room at RRU in the 2nd residency of my master's program, taking a break from endless readings and assignment outlines.

What a crazy journey this has been, getting from "there to here".

The irony is that RRU is in my old neighborhood, where I grew up, where all the things that tried to interrupt or even destroy me, happened.  In fact, I walked up to the old neighborhood today, stood in front of both houses, and felt this really tangible sense of triumph.  If I wasn't so dignified I would have danced a jig and sang  "na na na na boo boo!" 

From a violent, abusive past to drug addled high school drop out, to master's level student.  Somewhere in there I  got to find, almost lose, and then salvage a marriage to a wonderful man who, 29 years later, I still love with all my heart;  raise up in a "hit and miss, did the best I could with what I had, but no excuses" sort of way, two absolutely incredible, intelligent and oh so complex, children whom I love more than life itself; create a very successful and rewarding career, and qualify for the "world's coolest grandma" award (according to me, of course).  Looking back to there from here, I see a series of happy accidents that may not have felt like it at the time and know deep in this healed heart of mine that the God who found me was/is the Maestro who guided it all.

One of the happy accidents was reading Howard Zehr's book "Changing Lens" in 2003.  The idea of restorative justice seeded and took root in me, and within a week of closing the cover, I was enrolled in my first conflict resolution course at the Justice Institute, working my way to an RJ certificate.  Little did I know that would spark a passion for all things conflict transformative.  Then, on the day I was driving home from the JI grad ceremony I heard an ad on the radio for the Trinity Western University adult degree completion program.  Without a high school diploma, I emailed them anyway, told them my story and they enrolled me without one undergrad credit.  Thirty credits for life learning, eighteen months and twelve leadership courses later, and still without my BA, I got the inkling to apply for the master's program in conflict analysis and management.  My application went in March 2012, and after passing their conditional acceptance requirement (to complete an academic writing and critical thinking course with a minimum B+ ...pssst...I got an A) I started at RRU on July 13, 2012.

Having no idea what tomorrow will bring, but knowing my past is done, knowing I have prevailed, I want to get all un-dignified and silly and shout to the future..."BRING IT ON!"

God is good.
Past, present and future.
In other words, all the time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hiking as a Metaphor for Marriage

Just over a year ago Jim and I took up hiking.  Prior to that, we did not do an awful lot together.  He liked to golf with his best friend, and I liked to read and study, and that's just the way things were.  We spent some time together going out for the occasional dinner but did not enjoy a hobby together, unless you count all the years of watching the kids play ball. After the kids became adults, and we no longer had the common activity of parenting to keep us connected, I recall hoping and praying that somehow we could find something, anything, to re-discover what drew us to each other in the first place.  Life can get like that. Careers, children, bills, responsibilities and exhaustion all conspiring together to make true intimate relationship scarce. So sans kids, he spent his free time on the golf course while I spent mine shopping, working,  reading or watching TV. I remember well when we started doing things together.  It was just after the Winter Olympics. One Saturday
Read more

The Brotherly Agreement.....of the Moravian Church

I'm presently reading The Forgotten Ways, (Hirsch, 2006) and the author made a comment about Count Zinzendorf and the Moravian church. He was referencing a spiritual renewal movement borne out of unity that occurred in 1727, and it piqued my interest enough that I went "googling" this morning. What I found was fascinating, at least to me! I have long wondered how the church of Christ on Earth, in all it's varied and wondrous forms, truly achieves unity and what would happen when that unity is actually achieved (and considering Jesus prayed for our unity His last night on Earth, it will indeed be achieved)! The story of the Moravians and Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf gives us a unique view into the possibilities. I'll reference some websites later, but first, some quick background. John Hus (1369 - July 6, 1415), was a Czech priest and philosopher who proclaimed his protest against untrue doctrines of the Roman Catholic church more than a century before Mart
Read more

What's in the Cup?

Image
The instructor stood on the stage, glass in hand. Holding the partially filled glass out in front of him, he looked expectedly at the audience. It's going to be one of those "glass half full/glass half empty" lessons, I thought. The instructor hit the glass. Water sloshed out. Ok, that was random, I thought. "How come the water came out of the glass?", the instructor asked. "Cause you hit it". "Outside forces impacted it". "It got hit". piped up various voices from the audience. The instructor repeated the action. Surprise, surprise, water sloshed out of the glass. Hope the church doesn't mind the wet carpet, I thought. "So, why did the water come out of the glass?", the instructor asked again. More voices chimed in.... a man's voice - "external forces making contact with the containment were sufficient to cause expulsion". Okay, I bet he's an engineer, I thought. A woman's voice, "someone a
Read more