Reflection

Graduation has a funny way of making you feel oddly sentimental at strange times. Particularly when you're exhausted due to the fact that you're trying so hard to hold on to all the moments that would be lost if you actually went to sleep. It's happy, to be sure - I mean, why wouldn't you celebrate completing four years of hard work? (Yes, I realize that "hard" is a very relative term. I fully expect further schooling to be increasingly difficult.)

But somewhere, deep down, there's a very real sorrow that goes along with it. Something continually crying, Don't let this be the end...please...I don't know what comes next. I don't want to let this time go yet. I'm not ready. I don't want to separate from the dear friends that have become as tightly knit as a little family.

It's weird; it's a goal you work toward for more than 16 years of your life. And all of a sudden, it's all over. You don't have the familiarity of academia to look forward to after a three-month break. It's not scary; we serve a God bigger than uncertainty. But it is heart-wrenching, and leads to occasional unexpected tears.

I'm so thankful for the time I've spent here. I'm thankful for the learning, for the music, for the life lessons, for the joys and the sadness, for shared experiences, for the accomplishments and the failures, and most of all for the relationships. I couldn't have asked for a better college experience, and I have the most wonderful friends I could possibly imagine.


"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus...And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and my be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God."