Did you know me this time last year?
I was a senior in high school -- and I was one of those senior girls. A senior girl who, while everyone else delighted in the arrival of their graduation robes, tried on hers with misted eyes. A senior girl who, while everyone else exclaimed how excited they were to get out of the house, clung teary-eyed to her mommy. A girl who had to make "crying dates" with her shower so that she wouldn't lose it in class (although that still happened multiple times); who had to practice the graduation song dozens of times at home until she could get through it without choking up; a girl who hugged more and cried more during that last quarter than you would ever believe. A girl who dreaded every end and sobbed through every last -- and a girl who missed the magic of every new beginning.
Everyone tried to tell me. "Things are ending," they would acknowledge, "but they have to end so that new things can happen."
I would have laughed in their faces if I hadn't been crying (rude, I know). I didn't care about beginnings. I couldn't understand why more people weren't feeling this way. Silly and melodramatic as it sounds, a little part of me died when I graduated from high school.
I never asked God why I had to graduate and move on. That just comes with life, and He certainly ought not except me from the human task of growing up. But I did ask Him, many many times, why it was so hard for me when it seemed to be so easy -- so exciting -- for almost everyone else.
"It is not that everything that has anything to do with ourselves is in itself wicked and deserving of death. It did not mean that when Jesus said, 'Not my will...' There could not have been even the smallest part of His will that was wicked. It was a choice to lay down everything -- the good He had done and the good He might do if He was permitted to live -- for the love of God. The same choice is offered to us... Little deaths have to be died just as great ones do" (Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity).
God never answered why I was so devastated about moving on to a new stage of life. Maybe I'm simply more inclined to form strong emotional attachments. Whatever it was, it was settled and not going to change. But what could change was what I did with it.
In the grand scheme of things, moving on from high school is not what most people would call a "great death." But it still had to be died. I had to give up high school and everything that came along with it -- the comfort of familiar friends, teachers, events, drives, everything I knew -- they all had to be forsaken, changed, died to.
But it has taken nearly a year for Christ to impress the following onto my heart:
"There is a big however. It is this: We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live" (Elliot).
I can hear you now. "Kendall, you're over-spiritualizing graduation."
Perhaps in your experience, it wasn't (or won't be) nearly this big of a deal. Perhaps no one, no one at all can relate to this. But my friend, this paralyzed me. I was unable to move on and embrace the new life that I had been so graciously given. I could not enjoy it fully, because all my new experiences were mixed with the memories of a past that I couldn't get back. I'm a naturally joyful person, and this fought hard to take that away.
That part of me died, and it stayed dead.
It took the realization that it really has been nearly a year for me to make an effort to fight nostalgia. It took realizing that my life has been on hold, even as it whirred by me, for almost a year! Life is too short, my friend! I cannot spend a year wishing it was an earlier year! I cannot spend a year too focused on old acquaintances to reach out and make new friends! I cannot spend an entire year of college in high school!
I know you may not be able to relate to this yet. But from what I have seen of people beyond me in years and wisdom, there will come a time when you wish you were facing anything but
now.
But we are told to make the most of every opportunity. We are told to forget what is behind and press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us. We are told to see that He is doing a new thing.
That part of me died for a reason -- so that it could live again. So that it could be brand new. And oh! He has been waiting far too long for me to come to Him and beg Him to begin that new thing.
Giver of good, help me love the now!
To love the now!
Whether you are a middle schooler about to begin high school next semester, a senior thinking back on the past four years and looking expectantly to the end of May, or you have moved beyond those stages and are smiling at all the life I have left to live (much of which I am sure will blow high school out of the water)...may you love the now. May He help you love the now. If the now is filled with laughter, may it spill out onto everyone around you. If the now brings you heartache, tears, and little death upon little death, may you have the courage to die, knowing that you are meant to live again.
Laugh with me. Cry with me. Feel whatever you're feeling with your whole heart, and don't be afraid of it.
But don't be afraid to let it go, feel something new, and do something new.
Happy Fourth Quarter, my friend. May you live it with your whole heart.
