From Past to Present

The screensaver on our family computer is a slideshow of pictures throughout the years. One of the pictures that popped up today was a still shot from a music video that I was in and helped produce in high school. If you know me at all you know then you know that I ended up digging out the DVD of the music video and watched it and other high school videos. Seeing the videos again, recognizing my old friends, and recalling the behind-the-scenes events made me reminisce about high school.
I've said it to a few people before, but I've never fully confronted an issue that has weighed heavy on my heart for a few years now. Throughout all of grade school -- we're talking K-12 here -- I had a solid group of friends. The friend groups altered here and there, but I am proud of the people that have surrounded me during my life. While I always had very close friends, I wasn't everyone's friend. Now, when I say that I went to a high school with 2,100 students, that fact seems reasonable. However, it wasn't the size of my school or the people in my classes that I blame for not being everyone's friend. Growing up, I was so focused on me, my family and my friends. While there is nothing wrong with that, I took it to the extreme. I shunned people who I didn't think were "cool" or that I thought were weird. As hard as it is to type, I have to be honest: I was not a nice person. You name it, I said it when I shouldn't have or didn't say it when I should have spoken up. I belittled others to make myself feel better and said horrible things to people who had only ever been nice to me.
The people that I have shared this with have given me shocked expressions and say that they doubt I was as mean as I say. Their expression and kind words warm my heart because it tells me that I have changed and grown. Every day I pray that I can carry out God's will and that I can glorify His name. I'm confident that, at least in small ways, I proclaim His word in my actions. Although I cannot undo the wrongs of the past, I feel that I can offset those wrongs by including others and choosing what is right over what is easy in the present and future. It's hard to look back on my high school years and recall all of the mean things that I did and I wish like crazy that I could apologize for things that I did. I'm not one to say that it's too late to do something, but, in this situation, I'm afraid that it is too late. However, I pray that by paying it forward each and every day that I can work off the debt that I owe myself and to all those that I hurt in the past. I want to be a better and always push myself to grow. If it seems childish, I'm sorry. I believe, though, that if you ever get to the point where you think you are done growing, you're in a bad place. So, I pray that we can all learn from the past, be better in the future, and love what we have today.