tuesdays child: charlotte

At the encouragement of a mentor,  I signed up to attend a writing / speaking conference of which I had never heard –  SheSpeaks presented by Proverbs 31 Minsitries. At the time, I registered, two other friends were interested in the conference.   I was told several other women from my church would attend.   When I boarded the plane Friday morning,  I was  alone.  Nobody I knew was attending.    I was okay with that.   Actually a little excited.   I’m the type of person who loves to be with a gaggle of folks – the hustle the bustle….but on the flip side I absolutely love to unplug and be completely alone.   I was about to get the best of both.     Add to that,  I was going to spend some of that alone time on a trip down memory lane in Charlotte, NC.

Charlotte   – even just the say it  makes a lump in my throat – holds a bittersweet place in my heart.     When I was 15 years old, I was a small town girl.   As the John Mellencamp song says,   “I was raised in a small town.  Taught to feel Jesus in a small town.  Just a small town romantic – that’s me”     And that was me.   I was a Northeast Arkansas girl born and bred –  But even then I had a peripatetic spirit that wanted more.    I’ll never forget the night my mom broke the news to me that my small town life was about to change.  My  family was being transferred to the BIG city.   I honestly took the news really well.   I was moving to a southern city….with a mall.    That’s about all my 15 year old self cared about.    And from all my past life experiences in a small town,  if you were the “new kid” and wore cute clothes,  took Honors classes, – that was all  one needed to be accepted  into the  ”in” crowd.   It never donned on me that life would be any other way.

The moving trucks loaded our stuff.  We moved in July.  The next few weeks before school started,  my mother and I explored the  Queen city.  Learning the ways of North Carolina.  I tried Cheerwine.   We shopped at Harris Teeter.   And every day as I put on my clinique make up and poofed my bangs, I listened to my Amy Grant tape   (yes, tape. It was the 90′s.  Don’t judge) and prayed for my new life…just like my Brookhill Camp counselors had told me to do.

The first day of tenth grade arrived.  I wore a denim skort ( yes, a skort.  It was the 90′s. Don’t judge)  and white  long sleeve shirt with hemstitch detailing on the collar and cuffs.   I had carefully selected  the outfit at THE LIMITED…at the mall.   My schedule was full of honors classes.   I was set.

Not a single person said hello to me my first day of High School.  Not one.

That day I decided my parents had set out to completely ruin my entire life with their move to the BIG city.

Day two onward through tenth grade,  a few folks spoke to me.   I found a lunch table.   They were nice enough to give me a place to sit, but I never fit.   I had the clothes.  the classes.   but no real friends.   Yes, it was obvious – My parents were  ruining my life….and  by this time I was convinced God had pushed mute on my summer prayers.

my iPhone view of Charlotte

In eleventh grade,  my parents – outside of their  personal comfort zones – decided to attend a mega-church.   The youth group had come highly recommended to them – a group of  500 youth.    It was in that youth group, that I learned God wasn’t out to get me. In fact, to the contrary –  a thirty something youth pastor and his staff of college interns began to encourage a hurting, lonely, poofy haired small town girl in cute clothes.  Through them God showed me that I belonged…to Him.     Over the next two years,  my faith and walk with Christ flourished.  A foundation in faith was laid.     At school, I was the “good girl” and I was okay with that distinction.   I continued not to have  close friends.  I didn’t get asked to parties or prom.   I didn’t have a boyfriend.    I spent Saturday nights in my church sanctuary  praying for my family and my future.    It sounds pitiful, I know.   I seriously could have been the kid that wore the t-shirt “Jesus is my boyfriend”.    But that wouldn’t have looked good with my denim skort.

I graduated High School and went half way across the county to college.  I would never return to Charlotte.   My parents moved back to small town Arkansas my freshmen year of college.     And  I grew up.

My faith grew up, too.    The bumps and twists of life have tried and tested it.  I’ve tucked it away at times.  Well,  if I’m honest I’ve tucked it away most of the time –  the way we grown ups do.      I admit – there is a part of me embarrassed to admit how I spent my saturday nights in high school.   Odd because I wasn’t embarrassed back then.    In ways, my 16 year old self was far more mature than my 36 year old self is today.

Eighteen years later,  my plane laded on Charlotte soil.   I hoped in my rental car and took a spin around the city that changed my life.  This is the city where I learned to drive – (which I remembered as I drove past the site of my first wreck)  I went to the mall which now houses a Neimans, Tiffany’s, and Anthropologie. (on my!)      I bought a couple of diet Cheerwines at Harris Teeter.   I drove by our old house and noticed just how tall all the trees had become.   I remembered my bedroom where I wrote in my journal every single day.  (before blogs)    Then, on Saturday night,  I drove to my old church.  I sat in the parking lot for a quite awhile staring up at the steeple.    I thought about that first day of high school.  My times in youth group.   My college years.  My family.  My marriage.   My friends.   My career.    My church.  My hurts.   My joys.  My accomplishments.  My failures.  My wanderings.  My homecomings.  My past.  My future.

My life over the last 18 years hasn’t turned out exactly like I planned.  I’ve had my share of disappointments.  And  I  have been blessed with joys far beyond my wildest dreams.    I didn’t need to sit in my old church parking lot to know this, but it was a good reminder:

God didn’t push mute on my summer prayers years ago.  He heard every. single. one.

And he still  hears my prayers today.

He hears yours, too.

“I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing.

I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.”

- Jeremiah 29: 11  ( the Message)