"Jess" - a High School Memory

Once again, the brain clutter has kept me from sleep. I have been exhausted all day - having trouble keeping my eyes open - and now that I actually want to sleep, I can't. My brain is going way too fast and I can't clear my head long enough to drift off into oblivion.

A few months back, I joined Eli's Lids in a "Remember Me When: Junior High" meme. I saw on her blog this week that she's doing a "Remember Me When: High School" meme on August 18th, and since my brain clutter is unusually to that end tonight, I decided to join in. So here is my "Remember Me When: High School" post, with my own little twist on it.

(I'm the second from the left in the bottom picture and the one on the left in the middle row on the top picture.)
















This picture represents a time in my life where I very much felt God at work in my life and the lives of people around me. This picture is from March 2000, just a few days after my 16th birthday. I was a sophomore in high school, and I was in one of the busiest times of the year. This picture was taken opening night of our school's play/musical that year - we did Grease. In the month or two prior to this photo being taken, God was definitely at work.

During the course of the month or so leading up to the play, God started to impress on my heart the need to pray for one of my classmates (who was also in the play). We'll just call this person "Jess" (and I won't use pronouns) for privacy purposes.

For some reason, I kept being drawn to Jess and noticing that something wasn't quite right in Jess' life. Jess seemed to be"down" (sad, withdrawn, etc) - more than was usual for Jess.

All of a sudden (or at least it seemed that way), Jess was "there" a lot more than normal. Sometimes it was physical (in the play together, class together, etc.), and sometimes it was just in my thoughts (random train of thought would lead Jess across my brain clutter, Jess would show up in my dreams, etc). I decided that I would start praying for Jess whenever I saw or thought about Jess.

After a few weeks of praying for Jess, I decided to approach Jess and invited Jess to come to church with me. Jess agreed to think about it, but never showed. I continued to pray for Jess.

One night, I was sleeping over at a friend's house as we were going to be playing together in a volleyball tournament the next morning. Just before I woke up in the morning, I had a very vivid dream, and Jess was the main character/star of it. I woke up with a weird premonition that I needed to pray extra hard for Jess that day.

We headed to the volleyball tournament in a caravan with a few other vehicles. There was another group of girls that were going to be playing volleyball, and there was a group of guys that were playing in a basketball tournament that was running simultaneously at the same site (also WOL). Since I wasn't part of the WOL group, I didn't know who else was going to be there, nor did I think twice about it. However, when we pulled into the parking lot at WMU (where the event was being held), I went to get out of the van only to see Jess looking at me from the next car over. I think I probably looked like I'd seen a ghost!

We all played our various games throughout the course of the day, and when it came time for the outreach portion of the event, I knew it was time to pray. I think I prayed for Jess the entire time the speaker was sharing the Gospel and all the way through the "altar call". Let me tell you my ELATION when I saw that Jess had gone forward to receive Christ!! I knew then, that God had put Jess on my heart for a reason. He was preparing Jess' heart to be ready to receive His salvation!

When I think back on that time in my life, so many memories come out of that one month of March: Jess accepting Christ, a fellow classmate & friend losing her life, turning 16, bomb threats at both schools I attended, the play, soccer, more. It was one of the busiest times of my high school life, but also one of the best. I saw God at work like never before, and I got to be a part of it!

"Jess", I doubt you'll ever read this. And if you do, you probably won't know it's about you. But I want you to know - God still brings you to mind regularly, and I pray for you often. I don't know if you are still walking with Him, but I pray that you are. If not, run back to Him. He is the only source of true joy in this life!