Lesson Learned: We all have our own timeline

When most people think of Valentine’s Day, they think of significant others and love and hearts and roses and those conversation hearts that taste like Tums. Valentine’s Day looks quite different in first grade. There's lots of candy and doilies, but there’s not much mention of love or hearts or flowers. If I even hint at anything lovey dovey, all hope is lost and there are 20 six year olds giggling uncontrollably. 

I had my students make some decorations for our classroom and as I was explaining to them the idea behind x's and o's, chaos broke out. The room was filled with "eww gross!" "that's disgusting!" "kissing?!" "I'm never going to kiss" (I find that hard to believe) and "that's icky." It took me several minutes to reel them back in and get control again. I decided that next year, I might just go with hearts but the decorations turned out pretty cute... except that I, for some reason, temporarily lost my grip on reality and let them use glitter. I don't know what I was thinking. There was, and still is, and forever will be glitter everywhere.

I was talking to my teacher friends the other day who teach seventh and eighth grade and we were dying as we were comparing the differences between our students. My students can't even say the word "kiss" and my friends have to tell their students to stop making googly eyes at each other all day. 

This reminded me of how all of us are at different place in our lives. As we are growing up, there are certain milestones that we expect everyone to keep up with. We know at about what age kids should start to talk, walk, read, ride a bike, make googly eyes, drive a car, etc. And for some reason, we feel like that timeline should continue on into adulthood. Sometimes I feel like because I am 25, I should be at a certain point in my spiritual, physical, social, and financial development. Thankfully, we have an all-knowing Heavenly Father who knows at what level we really are. He knows what we are ready for and what things we need to wait for. Just like my first graders don't quite get it and think that they will never never ever want to kiss anyone, there may be things that we don't quite understand yet. Heavenly Father can see the whole picture. He knows what we will be like ten, twenty, forty years from now and He knows what is going to be good for us now and what will be good for us then. 

The key, for me, is to remember that Heavenly Father is all-knowing, all-understanding, and has everything under control. It's okay if we are not ready for some things now. That doesn't mean that we won't ever be. It's okay that I have friends who are married and have three kids, a mortgage, two cars, and a dog. I'm not behind. They're not ahead. We just all have our own timeline. As long as we are moving forward and not forever staying in first grade land, then I think we're doing fine. Be patient with yourself as you are learning and growing.

Just something to ponder.