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Sunday, July 19, 2015

A Letter to the "Greatest Generations"..

I'll never forget that day..
Filing into the auditorium at Los Lunas High School, wearing my black shirt (I always wore black), skinny jeans, and undoubtedly flip flops with my short black died hair, cat eye makeup, and probably on my phone. Most likely texting an upperclassmen that I shouldn't have been because I knew he had a girlfriend but I (of course) thought he was the one.
That day in that Freshman assembly I realized it.. I found what I was meant to do...

An organization known as Invisible Children came to my school that day, and showed us a video about the situation of child soldiers in Central East African Countries but back then it was just Uganda. I watched the entire video, and by the time I got home, I had tears in my eyes, I raced to my parents computer, and I googled everything I could on Central East Africa, the Lord's Resistance Army, and Invisible Children.

I was hooked..
I remember in one of those classes where the teacher would put on some DVD about some kid who got on drugs, and the way that when they took that first hit of heroin, or that first line of cocaine, they were hooked. That was me. I don't know what it was, but before I'd have to say that I was like a shell of a person trying so hard to emulate what I was supposed to be. I remember my dad talking about all the girls he had dated in high school, I remember my mom talking about her first job in high school and the lessons she had learned from working so young.

And then there was me.. I was turned down from every job I applied for in high school, I was pretty, but I was never the girl every guy wanted to date, looking back now, high school really wasn't that horrible, I just didn't seem to fit into any sort of mold my parents had seemed to fit into so easily.

After that day, my life went on normally, I still had the same friends, I still texted the same boys, and I still kept along the same path that would eventually lead me to self-harm, overdosing on pills, alcohol, and leaving school.
But through that one day in the school auditorium, I found what it was that I was meant to do.. but if I had been raised in the so called "Greatest Generations" I couldn't have done what I am called to...

You see, in the "Greatest Generations," I would have been wrong...

The reason there are so many children self-harming today (along with others) is because we hear about it now. I know when I ask my mom about girls who got pregnant or had break-downs, the town didn't rally around them, or try to help, they were cast away, sent to an aunt in the country, or a relative out of state to deal with their horrible ways. Many children who just needed a little something extra were numbed with shock therapy, and never were the same again.

Beyond that, I would never have heard of Invisible Children, or the LRA, or Central East Africa, or any of that back then. That just wasn't a woman's place. By now I would have been married or at least looking for a mate, while making a home, raising a family, and doing the "woman's work."

Up until about the 1970's in most of America, if one decided to become a missionary (of course only a man could), then his family would pack his things up in a coffin because that was the belief. If you were a missionary, it was a death sentence. Not only would I have been stopped and thought of as out of my mind for wanting that death sentence, I could never make my mother pack all of my things in a coffin and assume she would never see me again.. That's cruel. So what do you do? Break your family's hearts, or break God's?

I am not against the "Greatest Generations," I just disagree that they were the greatest.. I don't believe that I could have ever lived a better, more authentic life serving God than I can right now. Today...

I thank you (old people), for your sacrifices. I thank the soldiers for defending us against the Nazi ideals. I thank those who fought in Vietnam for fighting simply for all of the things that I will miss when I leave this country behind. I thank all of the brave women before me who fought for me to be the equal to every man that stands beside me. I thank the missionaries for making a path for this very imperfect generation to serve our God with "the least of these.." I thank everyone who has had a hand in the technology revolution, so that way when I'm in the middle of nowhere Africa, or the jungles of South America, I can still talk to my family. And mostly, I thank God for seeing the value and authenticity in my generation, and for not killing us all, cause let's face it, He's God, He can do what he wants.

Thank you for reading this, and for the sacrifices you are making for the next generation.

Peace to you,
Dorothy.
7.19.15.

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