I know it’s cliche to say it, but if I could time travel back to 1993 and speak to eighteen year-old me, I’m sure my former self would be shocked at how things have turned out for me.\u00a0 That year, I should have walked in my high school graduation ceremony, but I didn’t.\u00a0 Years of not taking school seriously had led to my having to take two summer classes just to receive my high school diploma\u2014in the mail\u2014in August.\u00a0 Later that year, hoping to right the ship, I joined the Air National Guard.\u00a0 They were offering 100% tuition to any state school in Illinois.\u00a0 It sounded great.\u00a0 It WAS great!\u00a0 But I managed to mess that up too.\u00a0 Between struggling to meet and maintain military weight and body mass index requirements and a continued disregard for all things school-related, I lost the education benefits and ended up quitting the military before my commitment was up.\u00a0 It was an honorable discharge, but it didn’t feel that way. \u00a0Over the next few years, I held a handful of jobs, from a department manager at a home d\u00c3\u00a9cor store, to a stove maker on an assembly line, to a shooting sports instructor at a Boy Scout Camp.\u00a0 While all of those were honorable positions, they weren’t me.\u00a0 I knew they weren’t me, but I didn’t care.\u00a0 I didn’t think very much of myself and, for a time, I stopped trying to better myself.<\/p>\n
Luckily, those who were close to me never stopped trying to help me.\u00a0 In the fall of 1997, after some encouragement from a friend, I began a two-year certification course in youth ministry studies.\u00a0 Those classes, and the contacts I gained while attending them, eventually led to a youth ministry position at St. Peter Catholic Church in Jefferson City, MO.\u00a0 While I didn’t know it at the time, the move to Jefferson City, two and a half hours from home, was the fresh start I needed.\u00a0 While there, I had the chance to put the past behind me and begin again.\u00a0 Within a few years of moving there I met my wife and started a family.\u00a0 Eighteen years after moving to Jeff City, I am married with four kids, am still working for the Church, and have a long-running music ministry.<\/p>\n
Why tell you that story?\u00a0 Isn’t today’s topic supposed to be about joy?\u00a0 Couldn’t I have found something else to write about the week after Easter?<\/p>\n
For me, my story is evidence of the Paschal Mystery, evidence of the Resurrection; evidence that hope triumphs over despair, that light wins over the darkness.\u00a0 I do not deserve the good things in my life.\u00a0 I have certainly put in the work to have a miserable life.\u00a0 Our God, though, saw fit to stick with me and to show me that death and resurrection go hand in hand.\u00a0 The scars I bear from my years of floundering are still there. I’m still that guy.\u00a0 Without those times of failure and depression, though, I would not have the life I do now.\u00a0 God used the path I chose to lead me closer to Godself.<\/p>\n
When Jesus appeared after his Resurrection, he still bore the scars from his crucifixion.\u00a0 Just ask Thomas.\u00a0 The past wasn’t erased.\u00a0 His past became part of his transfiguration into the divine person he was created to be.<\/p>\n
As you travel your road, know that God travels with you.\u00a0 Have hope and live in joy knowing that no matter what you try to do to yourself and those around you, God will find you and God will transfigure you.\u00a0 You just have to let God in.<\/p>\n
-Shannon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I know it’s cliche to say it, but if I could time travel back to 1993 and speak to eighteen year-old me, I’m sure my former self would be shocked at how things have turned out for me.\u00a0 That year, I should have walked in my high school graduation ceremony, but I didn’t.\u00a0 Years of…<\/p>\n