How we get grown is a mystery. We all do dumb stuff led by hormones, adrenaline, obliviousness, or intentionally tempting fate. These things should have taken us out, but somehow we escaped.

I just attended my high school reunion. High school, at the time, seems like the be-all-end-all assignment of who you are. A zit can ruin your life, and a romance is destined to last forever. Broken hearts crush you, sports championships make you, music drives you, popularity status defines you and nothing will change from this point until forever.

As adults, we laugh at our past naivety. At the time, our elders offered maddening words of “comfort” or exhortation: “This will pass,” “This is only the beginning,” “Things will change more than you can imagine,” etc. This was zero consolation while you were navigating the drama. As I gathered with my classmates, we found humor in the truth of their words – and that we are repeating them to our kids.

The evening consisted of catching up and carrying on about things we did in the past:

• unauthorized “experiments” in the chemistry lab
• cars and fast driving on “ghost bridge” and “rollercoaster hill” where you could “bottom out” your (parents’) car and lose your stomach all at the same time
• creeping onto the school’s roof to pull pranks on other classes during homecoming week
• shenanigans at “the bridge”, in the neighborhoods, at the swimming pools, and behind the school

During these adventures, there was the constant lookout for cops. Today, some classmates ARE those cops. As memories were brought back to light we laughed and and rolled our eyes.   Some highlights can’t be mentioned here because the statute of limitations will never run out. 😊

When you “catch up” with someone, you hear stories of heartache and break, struggles and victories, joys and happiness, all mixed together like the mosaic of mirrors spinning on a disco ball – beautiful and bright with a tinge of dark and sad.

An odd thing happens when a chasm of time has separated people from each other – you enter with memories of past encounters, good or bad, sometimes forgetting that life has happened for everyone. Yet it has. Things change. People change. And the molds that time and life create push out completely different individuals. The makeup is still the same, but the mixture of life and experience has made another creation. Former jocks may now be couch potatoes, loners may be bold world-changers, those who had it all together may be falling apart, while those previously in the shadows may now be in the limelight. Invariably, the ones who cut up and didn’t take school seriously own the world, and the nerds, well, they still are the driving force behind every operation. The constant is: nothing stays the same.

At a reunion, you gather because you share a common experience. You relive it a little and see where people are now. Maturity, wisdom and new paradigms fill in the time gap. Old feelings between people fall away and new set points are created.

For all the people who impacted me, the thing I wish most for all of you – is Jesus! He takes this convoluted, crazy rollercoaster of life, not down a hill to bottom out, but rather up the ramp to heaven with Him. We learn, we grow, we laugh, we cry, we relate, or we don’t. Jesus gives life eternal meaning in the context of our Creator and Savior who wastes NOTHING. Our Lord says this isn’t all there is. Just like high school isn’t what defined us, no matter what we thought at the time, likewise, this life isn’t the last of it. It is only the beginning. Eternity awaits, and for those who believe in Christ, it is what we all strive for now – even if we don’t know it! Unconditional love. To be truly known. To be valued in a way that we cannot comprehend. To have treasure that lasts forever. Jesus gives all of it to us! There is a song that says “I could wish you joy and peace…sunshine… happiness…smooth paths…treasures…that all your dreams come true…and paradise, and so I wish you Jesus, because when I wish that for you, I have wished you EVERYTHING!”*

 ^“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit I of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:17-19

And so, to those reading this, and to the Riverside High School classes of 1984/85. I wish you Jesus!

*I Wish You Jesus by Scott Wesley Brown