Tomorrow I graduate.
and its overly too much to handle, as I'm trying to get my head around that very thing.
In a lot of aspects, things are becoming real that things are ending. As I sit here in a half-packed room missing one couch, the quick rush of hurried parents moving their kids out in the hall. I'm sitting on our couch, Kitchimawkwa, wondering what to do with the fact that today's my last full day in college. How does one reflect well on everything that is good at the same time? How does one take with them thousands of significant moments hinged upon a single place?
However, as I sit in this white box that is slowly losing its creative side(s), peeling off decorated walls and losing its feel of home...I recognize that I cannot take it all. This room will not follow me. Its shared moments of prayer in community shared with tea under christmas lights....the RA's frequent electric guitar riffs from down the hall...bible study and spontaneous movie nights...bill withers and jon foreman...license plates and letters of thanks...the constant array of tennis matches outside the window.
College for me has not been a pursuit of academic excellence. It has not been an exploration of career goals, nor a step into the future. But what college has been a beautiful season in which I have watched myself grow - both in community with courageous brothers and sisters as well as in my walk with the Lord. These years will be marked by world-changers who were willing to lay down their own crowns for the sake of knowing God better, inviting others into authentic community, pursuing social justice, while leaving space to be real and have a sense of humor.
These past few days have been mixed with much heaviness, joy, laughter and reflection. In the midst of feeling baffled by the fact that I am at the door of graduation, the only posture that makes sense to me is clinging to the God who gave it all to me. Instead of exhausting myself to come up with a single significance of what these years have been, I want to sit in quiet trust with Jesus who is the best at offering one good (or hard) thing at a time.
It may seem like to the logical posture, but as I sit on this cusp of transition, I am reminded that everything that I have is a gift from Him. For now I am graduating, with my hands open; in thankfulness for the now, in recognizing in the past how Jesus has carried me through and given me everything, and for the future...trusting where we are going will be good.
* * *
"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - Andy "Nard-Dog" Bernard
and its overly too much to handle, as I'm trying to get my head around that very thing.
In a lot of aspects, things are becoming real that things are ending. As I sit here in a half-packed room missing one couch, the quick rush of hurried parents moving their kids out in the hall. I'm sitting on our couch, Kitchimawkwa, wondering what to do with the fact that today's my last full day in college. How does one reflect well on everything that is good at the same time? How does one take with them thousands of significant moments hinged upon a single place?
However, as I sit in this white box that is slowly losing its creative side(s), peeling off decorated walls and losing its feel of home...I recognize that I cannot take it all. This room will not follow me. Its shared moments of prayer in community shared with tea under christmas lights....the RA's frequent electric guitar riffs from down the hall...bible study and spontaneous movie nights...bill withers and jon foreman...license plates and letters of thanks...the constant array of tennis matches outside the window.
College for me has not been a pursuit of academic excellence. It has not been an exploration of career goals, nor a step into the future. But what college has been a beautiful season in which I have watched myself grow - both in community with courageous brothers and sisters as well as in my walk with the Lord. These years will be marked by world-changers who were willing to lay down their own crowns for the sake of knowing God better, inviting others into authentic community, pursuing social justice, while leaving space to be real and have a sense of humor.
These past few days have been mixed with much heaviness, joy, laughter and reflection. In the midst of feeling baffled by the fact that I am at the door of graduation, the only posture that makes sense to me is clinging to the God who gave it all to me. Instead of exhausting myself to come up with a single significance of what these years have been, I want to sit in quiet trust with Jesus who is the best at offering one good (or hard) thing at a time.
It may seem like to the logical posture, but as I sit on this cusp of transition, I am reminded that everything that I have is a gift from Him. For now I am graduating, with my hands open; in thankfulness for the now, in recognizing in the past how Jesus has carried me through and given me everything, and for the future...trusting where we are going will be good.
* * *
"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - Andy "Nard-Dog" Bernard