Back to the Future

In high school, during my Senior year, I took a speech class with Sue Wignall at good ole’ Moline High School. It was the scariest thing I had done up till that point. I just recently ran across one of the speeches I gave and I found it interesting to read. I thought I’d share... It was called our ‘Ten Year Projection Speech’ and it was basically, me, as a 17 year old… projecting where I would be when I was 27. The reason this was so interesting to me now is because it has officially been 10 years since graduation and I am currently 27. Here’s the speech:

“The year would be 2005 and I’m about 27 years old. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a wife who is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. I’ll be able to talk with my wife about whatever is on my mind. I’ll trust her completely. We’ve been married for about five years. We’re working on our second child, which will be a girl. Our first child is a three year old boy. He’s a chip off the old block, I tell ya, he’s almost set our dog on fire three times. Last week, I had to sit him down and tell him that the dog is one of the good guys and that he should try and get the next door neighbor’s cat that always gets into our garbage. Speaking of the dog, the poor thing, used to be a beautiful golden retriever, but now isn’t looking as nice with all those black singe marks from my boy playing with it.

We live in a small neighborhood, with plenty of kids to keep my son busy. It’s peaceful and that’s what we want. We live in a town which is smaller than Moline, but not too small. For a car, I’d like to have a teal grand-am, but if that’s asking for too much, I guess I’ll have to stick with my trusty 1987 maroon Ford Taurus.

My occupation is that of a religious background. I majored in Christian Ministries at Indiana Wesleyan and then I moved to this town to start work at the local Wesleyan church as a youth pastor or Christian counselor. My job doesn’t pay a whole lot, but it’s enough to pay the bills and feed the family. My wife works too and between her income and mine… we do just fine. We place our three year old son in an in-home day care that is just down the street from our house. So, it works out well.

Some people feel that money and power are the keys to happiness, and don’t get me wrong, those are nice bonuses to have. But for me, true happiness comes with having a family that loves me and that I love. My line of work will also give me happiness as I’ll be working with people. Caring for people and making a difference in a person’s life give me a feeling of success and satisfaction that I wouldn’t trade for money or power any day.”

I just thought it was interesting how close I came on certain details… like having a three year old. Like having a wife whom I can talk to about anything. Like having a dog. Like working on a second child. Like being in ministry. Like having a wife that works and putting our child in day-care.

It was also interesting to see which things were wrong: For instance, at this point in my life, I would never even consider being a Christian counselor. We live in an area that is much bigger than the Moline area… though we are in a pretty quiet neighborhood with a lot of kids around. I initially wanted my first child to be a boy… and I can’t even imagine that now… and I’m starting to wonder if I even want my second child to be a boy. I’ll probably change my mind when I have two teenager girls. Yikes!

It makes me wonder where I’ll be ten years from now… How many kids will we have? How will Emily be as a teenager? Will we still be in the St. Louis area? Will I still be a staff pastor? Will I still be into Star Wars, even though no new movies are due out? Some things are easier to predict now… other areas of life are much more elusive and harder to predict.

One thing I do see in all of this: God is faithful. He has orchestrated some really neat things in my life the past ten years… I can trust His motives and His plan. I look forward to seeing how God will work and direct during the next ten years of my life...