Just this week a friend from primary school decided to organise a reunion, Graceville State School class of 2000. 8 Years have gone by since we sang 'The graduation song' by Vitamin C and girls huddled together crying whilst the boys amused themselves with excessive inhaling of helium balloons that made us sound like Donald Duck on steroids.
It's an exciting thought, seeing again those 'kids' I once sat in oddly arranged table groupings with. Inevitably my mind drifted off to think about what we would say to each other during the reunion...
A: hey Kev, what have you been up to?
me: oh just at uni eh...work a bit...how bout you?
A: yea I'm at uni too, are you at UQ or what?
me: yea yea, are you at UQ too?
A: nah I'm at QUT...doing 'insert degree'
me: sweet...awesome
[awkward silence]
In trying to avoid that kind of superficial conversations I tried harder...what have I actually achieved since 2000? What have I done? What am I doing? Where am I heading?
Reflections...
Remember when in physics in highschool, we learnt about light, optics, etc. And somewhere in my memory I recall the whole deal about reflection being a virtual image, either diminished or magnified, erect...
Maybe thats why sometimes its hard in conversation to fill in gaps. I know that everytime I go to work we always ask "How was your weekend?", you see a friend you haven't caught up with for a long time and it's "What's been happening" and its always the same response.."nothing much" or "just uni and work".
Thats not true...or it shouldn't be true. When I thought about reflection I think I understood. When we just reflect we only notice the facts...I did A, I received B and achieved C, but when we change our angle and see from another vantage, the reflection is a refracted image of what it IS, a different story all together.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will. To the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Eph 1:3-6
So everyday is a blessing, a part of a grand plan to make us more perfect and adoptable (lovable to his eyes if you will). I should count all these blessings so that I may realise the fullness of what He has achieved in me.
In reflection:
In 2000 I sat the admission test to Brisbane State High and failed, which I knew all along but was too chicken to admit to my parents who wanted to know how I went, so you dodge it using the overused cliche "alright"- which is really a substitute for "below par", which academically translates to <50%. Now I truly thank God for allowing me to fail, it brought me to earth and opened my way to Kenmore SHS where we became the golden year, topping state avg as the best performing school in QLD.
Thats not the main thing. Looking back, if I hadn't failed, I wouldn't be with all my friends today and by God have I made the best group of friends.
Agustin- buddies since 1997,
Jarryd and Austyn- who've never let down,
Laurence- for being my first mate in a strange place called High School,
Gunner- always positive despite our religious differences,
Karl- what can I say, I don't think I respected any other friendship as much ours and we'll go far for sure
Tosh- we may not be in agreement all the time, but we always get around that so easily, thats what its all about.
I won't be where I am without them and its so easy to forget that. The great difference in character and personalities of these friends have truly taught me volumes on interaction and compromise and thank God for that.
I must also credit who I am today as a person to them. I remember in years 8 and 9 we would sit beneath T-block and joke around, a lot of times through abusing Jarryd (something I'm sure I'll be ashamed of in my later years) and he never became bitter about it despite a lot of times I have taken it too far. A part of me also feels guilty for not standing up for Tosh as much as I should during certain times.
Then in 2002 I caught World Cup fever, no more T-block chillaxing, its game on at the oval. I think I passed the fever to almost every one. Agustin bought a Roteiro...Karl, Tosh brought soccer balls every day...Jarryd had to grudgingly join the game. It was great fun for the next 3 years. Thanks for sticking by my interest, and making sport a prime hobby of mine from when I was once a pudgy Asian boy...yes that meant computer games.
I count all those days as blessings, for it changed me into who I am. Praises.
/out
