Catch 21

We can't believe that it is finally here, our last story of the year. This year has been quite the journey for us, but don't worry, we are continuing into 2018. We will have some new stuff for y'all to read so look out for that in the coming months. Now to get back to this month’s story. I reached out to this girl a couple of months ago; she’s someone that I went to high school with. We have kept up with each other's lives through social media but never really spoke after high school, which is how it is for most of us. This woman so graciously allowed us to interview here and it was so much fun to catch up with someone that I went to school with for several years. She is truly someone so amazing and at such a young age, really has a lot of great advice for women, and fortunately, she gets to pour into young girls every day. It really makes me hopeful for the future generation to know that a person like this girl is influencing the young women of tomorrow. So enough about my thoughts, let’s get to her story.

Her name is Lauren Swee.

We met Lauren in the perfect place, the Chelsea High School gym. One thing that I definitely remember about Lauren from high school was that she was an amazing athlete so it was only fitting to meet her there. Also, life has come full circle, as Lauren is now a teacher and coach at Chelsea. So of course, this was the perfect place. It had been such a long time since I'd seen Lauren so we spent some time playing catch up and then we started with her interview.

As always, I asked her to tell us a little about herself. Here is what she had to say, "I’m almost 25, I’m almost a quarter of a century in January. I moved to Chelsea, Alabama when I was 12. I just got plugged in with sports. I was a three-time athlete; I just wanted to do everything. I got involved in a bunch a clubs. I was so blessed that I got to play soccer at a community college in Mississippi. I then transferred with a full ride academic scholarship to Mississippi State. From the time I was 15, I knew I wanted to teach. I felt that I was good at math, so I thought what a good route, I’ll just go teach math, teach some high school kids. I started teaching at Chelsea in January of 2016. I have been here now two years; I even got to teach my sister. I coach many things here at Chelsea: Freshman volleyball, JV and Varsity girls basketball, and freshman boys soccer. I teach all freshman algebra 1. I also attend church of the highlands and I always try to stay plugged in. I’m super involved with my family and close friends, and truly that’s just a little bit about me.” Lauren really does have such a heart for the people in her life, not only her friends and family but also her students, which this next story you will really get to see Lauren’s heart for the students she is around.

We went on to discuss one of Lauren’s favorite moments in life, and she had to tell us such an inspiring story. When Lauren was done with her associate’s degree, she graduated early and took some time back home in Chelsea before going to Mississippi State. During this time, she was working at a bowling alley, helping with parties and stuff as well as couching the JV soccer team at Chelsea. Lauren mentioned that in this time in her life that she wasn’t as close to the Lord as she wanted to be but that shifted in the middle of soccer season, which she expressed to the girls on the team. One girl in particular stood out to Lauren, this girl was on the JV soccer team as a senior and just moved here. The Lord was telling Lauren that she needed to take this girl shopping and spend $150 and Lauren knew that that girl didn’t have a lot of money. Lauren was a college student and did not have a lot of money so kinda put the idea away for a moment. Later on, another teacher at the school that knew this student’s financial situation, told Lauren to take this girl shopping and that she would pay for it. Therefore, Lauren knew the exact amount that this teacher could give her as she was thinking that Lord gave her the vision but to use someone else’s money for it. Lauren took this girl shopping and told her not to look at any price tags but to get want she wanted for senior luncheon and graduation. This girl has never picked out her own clothes or outfit since she was in kindergarten and only got hand me downs. They got to the register and the total ended up being exactly $300. Lauren then used the $150 from the other teacher as well as having to use her own money that amounted to $150; she knew that she needed to be obedient to what the Lord had originally told her. The story doesn’t end there. A few weeks later, Lauren was working her job at the bowling alley and in one weekend, she made over a $150 in tips. Lauren stated, “I remember crying out to the Lord, telling Him that I would never hear His voice so clearly and not listen again. If I hear His voice, I will listen. This just shows how good God is.” This was truly such an inspiring story of obedience and the Lord’s faithfulness in that.

We also get to see that the Lord definitely knew that Lauren needed to be back at Chelsea, where she graduated. I asked Lauren to explain to us how she even ended up back at Chelsea because most people love getting out of that place after high school. She explained, “When I was 15, I was contemplating if I was going to be a physical therapist or a teacher. I don’t remember when it clicked but I got involved in FTA, and I coach a little upward basketball team and I just decided that I wanted to teach. I was good at math and I enjoyed math, so I knew that would be my route. When I was 16, my sister was 8. People used to say, ‘how funny would it be if you taught your sister,’ it could happen. A part of me always thought that I would teach my sister, even when I was younger. When I graduated college, she was a freshman at Chelsea, and I was student teaching at Vincent. I was just applying everywhere, just figuring out what would be best for me. There was one job opening in Shelby County in math and it happened to be at Chelsea high school, which is where I felt like I would be. It happened to be my sister’s math teacher. I just remember feeling that this is where I was supposed to be. It was in the middle of year, which is the biggest shocker of all. Because people kept telling me that, I wouldn’t get a job until May since I graduated in December, but I just knew that the Lord would work it all out. It was crazy that there was one job opening in Shelby County in math, at Chelsea, in my sister’s classroom. I interviewed and got the job and I’ve loved it ever since.” This allowed us to reminisce on old times, and even bring up the Winn Dixie parking lot, which if you went to Chelsea, you know what we are talking about (sorry for those who did not attend this school). We even got her to dish on some studying secrets that she had in high school when it came to reading books, we will not tell you that, you can ask her about it one day. Eventually, we had to stop talking about old memories and new tattoos and moved back to her dishing out more about her life.

As I love to ask everyone, I asked Lauren to describe to us one of the most challenging things that she has had to face in her life. She discussed with us that there are two. The first was when she was a senior in high school and she was very active in sports. The summer before her senior year, she was starting to have colleges look at her for her sports and this was a big time for her in basketball particularly because she was about to hit a 1000 point marker which is a big deal. This same summer, she ended up injuring her foot. At first, she didn’t think it was a big deal but ended up being more than she thought. She thought it was just some sprained ligaments but ended up taking the doctors two months to figure out she had an extra bone in her foot. This caused her to have a lot of pain in her foot, so they gave her two options to either remove it or suck it up and play. She decided to have the surgery to remove it in September of 2010. It was devastating to her. She was supposed to get her cast off in Oct., which was perfect timing because she was on homecoming court and was supposed to get it off the day before, but ended up having to have it on for another week. At 17, this was hard for her. This journey started in June and was still going in Oct, and she still wasn’t able to practice or play basketball at this point and was only sitting around at practices so she ended up using that time to go to the dermatologist. So she goes to the dermatologist not thinking anything about it and she gets them to check some spots that her mom told her to get them to check out. A few weeks later, she gets a call from her dermatologist that her and her mom need to come down to her office. Lauren still doesn’t really understand what is going on and the doctor tells them that she had two types of stage 1 melanoma (two spots were dysplastic nevus and one spot was carcinoma), which Lauren didn’t know what it was at the time. All she could really think about is how she wouldn’t be able to play basketball and that was all she wanted to do. She ended up getting her boot off and the next day she had to walk into her skin surgery. She eventually heals form that and ends up getting walking pneumonia a month later. This girl really can’t catch a break… And it doesn’t end there. She then gets bronchitis that last all the way through January. All of this stuff made her mad at God, but Lauren has now gotten to see how the Lord has used that experience in her life. She states, “I look back and I’m so thankful for all that. I ended up going to play soccer in college instead of basketball, which gave me a full scholarship to a community college. Then that lead me to go to Mississippi State, which is where I met three of the greatest friends ever. The biggest blessings. I never would have gone to Mississippi State to meet them, if I would have never gone to community college, had I not hurt my foot. But you can’t see that when you are 17. That has by far been the hardest. I’m just really thankful that I learned how the Lord is faithful at a young age because it helped me later on in life when I did end up having a broken engagement.” Lauren then goes on to describe how her experience helped her in a different battle later in her life. She realizes that if she didn’t go through that at 17, she wouldn’t have been able to handle a new trial at age 22 the same way. It was a completely different experience when she was 22 because she knew the Lord would be faithful, and she wanted to learn from this instead of turn her back on God like she did when she was 17. She reminds us of how good God is even when sometimes you can’t see it. She also reminds us that every story is different and every struggle is different because going to high school with her, I didn’t know that all this stuff was going on. This was a perfect example of why we started Her Story to make people realize that we are all more than what people may see on the surface. We can all relate to each other because we all have a story to share and Lauren really does have an amazing story to share. We didn’t end there but had to end how we also do.

We asked Lauren to define beauty for us and if she finds herself beautiful. She answered, “I think the most beautiful women that I know are confident in themselves and that give confidence to others. Really, the people that are the most beautiful to me are the ones that are pouring into others. You can tell that whatever they have that they let it overflow to the people around them. As far as for me in that aspect, I like to think that I am. There are areas that I feel that I still need to work on and there are times that I don’t see myself as beautiful but then I always get little subtle reminders to remind me that I am.”

Y’all this girl really has a heart of gold and it was so good catching up with her. I hope that you can take some of the things she had to say and really let you heart take it in.

Lauren, thank you so much for taking time during your holiday break to spend time with us and share your story with us. We know that it will truly be a blessing to the people who read it. Keep doing some amazing work at Chelsea High School.

As always thanks to my amazing partner, Emily for the rocking pictures. Even more than that, for being my best friend through this her story journey. I couldn’t have done this without you.

And last but not least, thank you to all you beautiful readers out there. Her Story wouldn’t be what it is now if it wasn’t for you all. Emily and I truly hope that the stories from 2017 have encouraged you and served as a reminder that you are not alone. We can’t wait to share more with you in 2018. Thank you for loving us so well in 2017. Happy New Year, and see you all next year! :)