To the Guy on the Bus

It’s been one of those days… Probably because it’s been one of those weeks… Probably because it’s been one of those months… Probably because it’s been one of those years. 2018 hasn’t been the best. When I look at why, I think maybe it’s because 2017 WAS the best - being filled with adventures, a move to a different city, a new job and an engagement.  Or maybe it was because 2018 really just wasn’t that great. People like to try to find one word to describe their year. For me, that word is failure. 

From the moment I rang in the New Year to this moment now, there seems to be more downs than ups. I was already failing at booking anything for my upcoming nuptials that were inching closer and closer. I felt like I was failing at pulling together a national convention that was also inching closer and closer. I felt stuck and frustrated professionally. There just seemed to be no “well at least this is going right!” Everything seemed to come with one major issue over the other and while I dealt with the blows, I seemed to be able to rally in the moment. And for anyone who knows me – that’s a huge feat. My personality is one which reacts on site and feels deeply. I can go from high to low and back to high again, depending on what I’m seeing out my window. My husband knows this part of me all too well. So when my wedding shower hit a huge snag, I was actually the one who told everyone it’ll be fine. When my second dress try on came and they altered the dress too small, I shrugged it off and joked that I must have eaten too much Taco Bell. When Convention came and there were clear issues with the cleanliness of our dormitory, I was angry for two hours and committed myself to making the best out of the situation. When I had to find a new wedding venue in 30 days, we were up for the challenge and my husband found the perfect replacement. And when my wedding day came, I was sick as a dog and it was storming like no other, I was a champ and the most calm out of the whole group (something my mom continuously praised me for because, again, calm sometimes wasn’t my M.O.). In all those events I thought to myself, could I really have changed?? Could I really now know how to not take things so personally, so deeply, and be cool as a cucumber??

Well, over the last two months, all the stress I thought I skated right over has crashed down and has made it hard to breathe. I have ‘time’ now to sit and think about all the things that went wrong during the most important year of my life and how “if I just did one thing differently it would have been perfect.” “Yes,” I’ve thought, “I’ve reverted back to the old me.” The old Kayla where anything short of perfection is something I want no part of. And the weight of the non-perfection I let slip by over the last year feels like it’s holding me underwater and unable to move onto the joy that should come with this new phase of life. 

I realized that somehow my relationship with Jesus has also suffered. Somewhere in this last year, I feel like I’ve grown increasingly distant from Him, and I don’t even know where it happened. But again, another failure. And the ultimate struggle is, I don’t know how to tell my brain to just let go of what happened and to stop living in the past. To stop lying awake at night and thinking, “if I would have just spent more time with the caterer planner, then they would have gotten the dinner dismissal correct instead of the stampede it seems to be.” Or “If I would have just spent money on another hair trial, then maybe my hair wouldn’t have fallen out after an hour.” This list will go on and on. So I decided to do the one last thing in a desperate attempt to get out of this funk and live my life. I decided to talk to God. I begged with him every night to relieve me from this silent pain I feel. I begged him to be there to look out for me.

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So this morning I got on the bus to go to work. It’s the Friday of my marathon week, which was the equivalent to finals. I looked at my phone: 40 unread text messages, 5 unread Facebook messages, 63 unread group me’s, 5 missed calls, and 297 unread emails across my 5 inboxes. I sit in my usual seat, and decided to use this time to get through some of my emails. The next thing I know, I hear banging from the seat kitty corner from me. I look up and this guy is motioning towards the outside of the bus. The bus is clear of people except for him, me and the bus driver, and I notice the bus is about to pull away from my stop. The next stop to where I work isn’t necessarily a walk in the park. I immediately jump up, grab my back pack and box of donuts and get off the bus right in time, not before turning back and screaming “thank you!” to the guy as he smiled and waved back.

This guy is young. He sits in the same seat every time I’m on the bus – back corner. I sit in my same seat, on the side, somewhat facing him. He listens to music every day on the bus as I assume he is on his way to work. I know he always takes the bus at least a stop farther than I do, because when I get off, he’s always the last one on, going to a less popular stop. Today the guy on the bus noticed I was too into whatever I was doing on my phone to realize that I was where I needed to be. But he knew where I needed to be and so he let me know. 

I hoped off the bus and immediately started sobbing. 

This was God showing me he’s looking out for me. That I’m always being looked after. Today is the first day I can take a deep breath and seem to feel it. Today I realize, once again, that wherever I’m at, no matter how uncomfortable I am with it, I’m right where God needs me. But if I’m too hung up with what’s in front of me. Too hung up with my perceived failures. Too hung up on feeling lost, and not realizing I am where I need to be, he’ll come get me. And most importantly, to go to him FIRST instead of as my last resort.

I know that where I am now is not my lowest low – I may have been there or I may have yet to experience it, but I also know that I have a life of joyful moments ahead too, it’s just trusting where I am now. I’ve realized that I need to be thankful for whatever strength God gave me earlier this year to skate over the challenges I’ve faced, because I now believe that I’d feel a lot worse if I let them affect me in the moment and completely ruin what was going on. And I’m excited to try to get there again, and to learn how to allow me to control things and not things control me. I need to remember that living in the past is silly, but learning from the past is wise. 

I’ll finish with this: Almost exactly 8 years ago I met a boy at a party. We danced all night, exchanged numbers and talked constantly. We hung out almost daily, usually on his side of campus, and I’d have to make my way home by myself at night. He ran with the frat crowd, I ran with the Christian crowd, he didn’t really believe in God. But he was the first one I ever opened up to about the murder of my best friend and thus it created an immature but strong one way bond. Fast-forward 6 months: he was back home on the east coast for the summer and I was watching his pet back in Madison. We talked nearly every day – he was having life changing adventures, he would tell me. I wanted to see him so bad I convinced my family to take a trip to the east coast so maybe we’d run into each other. When I got there, we decided to meet up, and he’d show me around the area. He took me to meet his mom, show me his old prep school, we walked the cliffs near the ocean. It was a magical day. Last he took me to a ‘secret spot’ where we watched the most beautiful sunset. On the way back to my hotel, I sat in his car, with silent tears because somehow, I knew this would be pretty much the last I hear from him. A few weeks later he returned back to Madison, collected his pet, and as we know it now, completely ghosted me. After 8 months of ‘casually not dating.’ I held on to a picture of that sunset for a long time, thinking I’d never get to go back there and see it. And then I decided to start a chapter of Sigma Alpha Omega because I wanted to stick it to this man with the ultimate Man and with my sisters at my side. The pain lasted longer than I would prefer to admit because I had carelessly shared with him my deepest fears, anxieties and secrets, which he walked away with. He showed me beautiful things and a different side of life, that of the ‘somewhat rich and wanna be famous.’ And I kept that sunset around for a long time. One year and three months after being ghosted, I met another guy. Someone who stole my heart in a way that no one else has before. Being genuine and honest went both ways between us. After studying and hanging out, he’d always ride the bus back to my apartment with me to make sure I was where I needed to be. He helped me realize that at the end of the day, I’ve realized I’ve seen better sunsets. And more importantly, I’ll see magnificent sunrises. 

God’s timing is not wrong. The events in our life are made to break us so we can build ourselves up again with Jesus. And we are not made to know the results of our struggles while we are knee deep. We aren’t made to see the better sunsets before they happen, but we as Christians need to have faith that God will show them to us when it is time. 

I used to live for sunsets in hopes it would bring me back to that one magical night. Now I live for sunrises as a promise of new beginnings, each day. And when we forget that, God will remind you to look up, even if it comes from a guy on the bus. 

-Kayla Lemmon Johnson,
Vice President of Regional Mentors
National Board of Trustees

This devotional is dedicated to my wonderful husband, my other “guy on the bus.” Together in marriage, we are learning how to ensure that we are there to make sure the other is exactly where they need to be with Jesus. This is also dedicated to my sisters in Christ who have been there for me for over 6 years, helping to nourish my relationship with Christ and speak truth to me when it is needed.