What do you see in this photo? You’d probably answer with the obvious: a young teen in a t-shirt and jeans.
What do I see? Well, in this case, the obvious to you is my point entirely. On the very last Friday of Rebekah’s last year in middle school, she finally participated in dress-down Friday. Y’all, I’m talking about the VERY last day to participate after 3 years of Fridays!
There are people in this world 100% resistant to change. I’d honestly tell you that Rebekah is 1000% resistant to change if that’s even possible. She sets her will and won’t be deterred in her direction. Like, at all. Ever.
Obviously, there are incredible strengths in this type of willpower. But there is a lot of weakness in resistance to change too. This girl of mine with so much potential will miss out on much of life living behind a protective shield of “no”.
There are a host of things I’ve got to teach this young girl about living but undoubtedly one of the most important is simply how to say “yes”, which is incredibly difficult when sometimes even saying the word “yes” is as difficult as the action.
Not knowing how to make the shift to a new season – and frankly not wanting to in the least – my daughter has refused to engage in steps needed for the transition to high school. We’ve spent hours and hours for weeks now to help her accept coming changes, seemingly to no avail.
But God.
But prayer.
But love.
Suddenly a noticeable shift to the impenetrable defense occurred yesterday. Someone resistant to change down to her core, changed. Last night she went to the new high school for the event causing all the trauma for the past few weeks – and she lived through it. Rebekah got a dose of resiliency last night and suddenly she was stronger, and it showed. Much to my utter surprise, she came home and laid out an outfit for dress down Friday.
When you look at this photo you see a young teen in a t-shirt and jeans.
When I look at this photo, I see someone doing the hard work of overcoming trauma and learning to live. My girl may be late to the party, but she showed up before it was over and that’s all that really matters.
