A Backward Glance | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: A Backward Glance | Previous Challenge Entry
By Naoma Bird
11/22/23
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A Backward Glance
It was the first day of the new school year, not only in a new school; but in the first year of high school. Kate should have been excited but it was all too familiar and not in a pleasant way. Because of her father’s job situation, it was the sixth move to a new school since starting kindergarten. Remembering the drill all too well, she thought:

“Leaving behind friends and many belongings.”

“Adjusting to new places, new challenges, new homes, and surroundings.”

“Being the “new kid,” trying to fit in and make new friends.”

As Kate entered the school a few of the kids said hello, but most of them just stared at her with that look, she thought said, “There’s the new kid.”
At lunchtime, Kate was invited to join some girls at their table. The girls were very friendly and polite; however, she still felt out of place. They asked her a few questions about where she was from, but the conversation soon turned to talking about other friends, spending time in the summer with their grandparents, and who might ask them to the Homecoming Dance. It left her feeling she had nothing to add to the conversation. Not knowing their friends, not getting to spend time with her grandparents more than once a year, and certainly not being asked to the dance was her reality, since no one even knew her.

Kate had learned to not get too close to people because sooner or later there might be another move. There were no close long-term friendships in her life. She learned to not look back, but to start over and over again, hoping one day for that place where she wouldn’t have to move and say goodbye once again.

The illness of Kate’s grandfather soon prompted yet another move; this time to her grandparent's farm, so that her mother could help out there. It was quite a culture shock since she had always lived in the city. Now she felt isolated, out on the farm and in another new school where she had nothing in common with her rural American peers. It was here where things were about to change. At first, the kids made fun of Kate because of the way she dressed (teens in California do not dress in the same fashion as girls in rural America), but a few girls came to her aid and befriended her.

Fast forward a few years:

Kate met a young man named Greg, who was the brother of a classmate in that little country village. Two years later they married. The birth of five children resulted from that marriage. They moved into several tiny apartments before purchasing three homes of their own over the next forty-two years. They never left that little rural village until all their children were grown and on their own and were retired.

Understandably, Kate was determined her children were going to go to the same school from kindergarten through high school graduation. As a matter of fact, two of their grandchildren went to the same school. You see, they’d found a place to call home and also a church that cared for them in that little town, where friends helped Kate through her struggle with getting close to people, and eventually finding healing in a relationship with Jesus. Both Kate and Greg received Christ, obtaining His salvation and the promise that he would never leave them or forsake them. This was the promise Kate had been looking for, the promise of a permanent home and never having to say goodbye again.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22 – NIV)
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. (Deuteronomy 21:8 – NIV)

(Fiction)

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