I will never forget my first week of my junior year of high school. I had just transferred schools and was very nervous about meeting people and being accepted in a new place. I went from a school of 400 people to a school of 2,000 so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would I just blend into a large crowd of teenagers or would I find my place? Would the guy I walked past to get to homeroom ever stop barking at me when I walked by? When I tried out for cheerleading (in front of the entire student body and a panel of judges) would I freeze? Would I make friends easily or be a loner my last two years of high school?
I lived with my die-hard republican Father and our golden retriever, Joe, in a nice place on the golf course. One night, in the middle of the night, Joe started barking and growling at the door. My Dad and I ran to the door to find out what the commotion was, my dad in his bathrobe (and a shotgun in hand) and myself in my flannel pj’s. As we opened the door, we heard some loud but muffled chant from the teenagers peeling out in their Jeep Cherokee as they sped off laughing. We looked around the yard and all we saw was WHITE! Yes, toilet paper everywhere–high up in the trees, all over my Dad’s car and strategically scattered across the lawn and the bushes.
I went in my room and cried. I felt unaccepted already, and it was barely even my first week. I wanted to run back to my old stomping ground where I was known and embraced, but I decided to give it a little more time and ignore the pettiness. The next day at school I sat next to a girl named Misha. At one point during class, Misha leaned over and whispered, "So, did you get TP’d last night?"
I turned bright red! How did she know? Was she in on it? Was she one of the bratty teenagers who did this to me? Was it spreading around the whole school that I was the new loser to be picked on? I sheepishly shook my head, embarrassed about my new rejection at Fort Vancouver. To my surprise she replied, "THAT’S AWESOME!!!" I looked at her puzzled. Misha said, "That means your in the cool crowd! Around homecoming, it’s a tradition that the seniors only TP the people they like! Then the next week, the Juniors turn around and do it back to them! Next week it’s our turn.Wanna come?"
I was left perplexed but relieved. The next week I had a great time with some new friends, showing my mutual acceptance in this odd but fun way. My Dad didn’t understand why we couldn’t just take each other to a movie to mark our friendship...I understand his point, it’s a lot less to clean up.
I started thinking this morning about this last year of our lives. It was a very hard, long and challenging year. There were so many times where both Brandon and myself questioned - Is God mad at us? Do we commit some sin we don’t know about to deserve this? Have we been rejected and forgotten about by the Lord? I think it is a natural inclination to think that during hard times that God has abandoned you. Yet I am reminded that the Lord disciplines those He loves (Rev. 3:9), and that we should consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of any kind because he is perfecting our perseverance and faith (James 1:2).
Whether we are being disciplined or tested, it is all because He loves us and wants the best for us. It is his mark of TP on our lives. It feels like rejection, but is really a mark of love and acceptance. It means he cares enough about us not to spoil us. It means he has work to do inside of us that can only be done through hardship. Lessons that can only be learned through a slight sting. Those things leave such a bad taste in our mouth that we never respond in the same way to that situation again. We learn, we grow and our faith is incredibley strengthened through it all.
Bring on the TP!