I want my life back!  No, I'm serious, I want to rewind seven or so years and correct all the mistakes I made (naturally retaining all the knowledge I have now).  I want to spend more time making memories with my friends instead of sitting around at home.  I want to stay with the good times a little longer, and go past the bad times a little faster.  Will I get my wish?  Of course not.  We can only live once; there is no second chance, no way to resurrect the past.

   Picture a roller coaster in your mind.  When I imagine a roller coaster, I think of the Zambezi Zinger at Worlds of Fun.  It's gone now, but I remember riding it when I was five or six, having the living daylights scared out of me, and afterwards swearing I'd never go on another ride in my life.  For those of you who didn't experience it: you went up a corkscrew for what seemed like forever, then when you finally got to the top, you were sent down an almost ninety degree decline that sent you whipping through the rest of the ride.  When I contemplate my life as far as it's taken me, I'm reminded of that roller coaster.  Imagine you're riding in the front car of the roller coaster you pictured.  You waited in a long line, climbed into the train of cars, and finally rumbled off.  It takes forever to get to the peak of the ride, and when you finally reach it, there's a moment of suspension while the rest of the cars go over the tip.  You're sitting in your metal box, staring down at the tiny people below; you can see all the gut-wrenching twists and loops ahead, and second thoughts are a wasted effort.  In that moment of suspension, when you're visualizing that ninety degree drop, the long ride up doesn't seem that long anymore.

   My childhood is almost over; my chance to learn and prepare for life is all but gone.  I'm looking down that drop, within a year I could be far away from the comfort of my home, going to a college hundreds of miles from my friends and family, taking my first steps as an adult.  I'm sitting on the precipice, and all the years I spent getting here is compressed into a blur of memories and vague images.  And just like you can't fight gravity when you're on the roller coaster, life isn't going to wait for me; there's no going back.  Every time I try to stop and think about the future, it arrives and passes me by.  Questions like: 'Am I ready to face life's challenges?' or, 'Am I ready to be an adult?' are pointless.  And they are going to happen whether I'm ready or not.  It's that feeling of helplessness that I've been wrestling with the past couple months.

   Imagine the roller coaster again.  When you're hanging in the balance of gravity, anticipating the drop, you may start wondering if this was such a great idea.  It looked fun from the ground, most of the people coming off the ride looked like they had fun, but now that you're mere moments from the action, fear and doubt start to creep into your mind.  A few people had looked pretty sick when they staggered off, and all those warning stickers must mean something.

   When I was waiting in line for graduation, the future looked really cool.  Finishing high school seemed like my ticket to a problem free life, after all, school is the source of life's problems.  I don't remember exactly when inspiration struck, but I realized my mistake none too soon.  The source of life's problems isn't people, school, or work, but life itself; high school is just a taste of what life is like.  Those rules that I was so desperate to escape from don't magically disappear when I get my diploma.  The only thing that a diploma brings is a change in motivations.

   I've read many rags-to-riches stories in my life, and even though I cheered when the hero or heroine beat the odds and made it big, I didn't envy the trip.  I don't want to have to overcome insurmountable challenges to reach success, but my fear of failing is greater then my fear of the challenges.  When you boil it all down, I suffer from a simple fear of the unknown.  Unfortunately, that unknown is my life.

   This article has been a struggle to write.  Usually I ask questions rhetorically and have the answers before I start writing, then it's merely a matter of explaining the solution.  This time, I don't have a solution, and it's been a challenge to write an article without knowing the conclusion beforehand.  There has been one inevitable conclusion of anything I've done thus far.  No matter where I go or what I do, I always end up on my knees.  God has been the only unchanging thing in my ever-changing life.  He doesn't leave me when I ignore Him, and He's still waiting for me when I've done all I can do on my own.  He has a perfect plan for my life, and I have the choice to either follow it with His guidance, or ignore it and try to live on my own.  Jesus says that He is the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through him.  If you're not following His path, any progress you think you make takes you farther and farther away from the Father.

   If the past year has been an example, these next few months will bring radical change to every aspect of my life.  With that in mind, read this for what it is: a look at the changing life of a growing individual.


   The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.  -  J. R. R. Tolkien