Graduation Day
Graduation Day is a day when you graduate from one chapter in your life to another. These past few weeks many of us have experienced our children and grandchildren finding closure for one achievement and expectations for ones to come all rolled into this one season. And one by one they walked across a stage, shook hands with the Principle and were given a document to act as proof of their “to be”successful transition to their next great adventure.
On one particular ceremony there was a speaker named Dr. Brian Williams at Spring Branch Middle School’s 8thgrade graduation. And to make this short, he said he asked some students to answer the question: If you could take one thing with you to high school what would it be: The answers were a phone, a charger, a calculator, and a pencil. The phone so you could keep in contact with friends and receive and deliver necessary communications, the charger when you need to refill a low battery, a calculator to help solve tough equations and lastly a pencil, for each time you use a pencil you leave a mark on something but when you make a mistake with a pencil, you can always correct it.
This was a clearly an analogy that perched my bottom shelf. For with each suggested item, I could relate to God and his continued blessings of love and support that he has offered.
Regarding the Phone: God helps us to stay in contact with him through our prayers, and then he nudges us with his thoughts to communicate HIS love, comfort, encouragement, wisdom, care and understanding with others.
Regarding the Charger: God is our recharging station, when we run out steam due to schedules, stress, and just juggling life itself, he is where we will find our calmness and peace and security and refreshed sense of balance. But we have to plug into his never-ending source of grace, compassion and all knowing purpose for each of our lives.
Regarding the calculator…each day we are presented with problem solving equations that we are called to figure out. Some are pretty easy while others feel like a tangled mess of uncertainty. There again lies God, watching and waiting for us to ask for direction and guidance. He has not put us on this earth without a plan, but it is HIS plan though not ours. God is growing each of us through our faith; faith in knowing we’re not alone, faith in trusting him to make good out something we see as really tough, and faith that he will in his timing help us to see his footprint on all things. Christ is the only one who knows the answers and sees how the future will shake out.
And finally regarding the Pencil: Everyday and in most everyway we are making a mark on someone or something. We do the best we can and throve to make good decisions but one thing is for sure: we will all make mistakes and many of them we would give anything to have a redo on, but God sees us as righteous in his eyes; for our mistakes, sins have been erased buy the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross. He is our Heavenly eraser.
And this brings me to my final point: years ago I complimented my friend on the efforts and oversight and financial support he and his wife have given to a precious institution that helps special needs folks. His response, was something like I am just walking across God’s stage in life…I have never forgotten that.
We are only here for a little while, and just as these graduates walk across their stage to close one chapter and begin another, so are we. Each season is a new one, filled with new adventures, trials, hurdles, pot holes, joys and disappointments but we must remember that as we cross each stage, we are leaving a mark on those whose lives we cross, just as God has left his eternal mark on us. We may not have a paper in hand as we cross a stage from one to another but what we do have is an eternal resting place that is set out just for us when we cross our final stage.
May God continue to bless all of our graduates and cover them with protection and fill them with wisdom as he grows them to be closer to him as they realize and accept his love and pure devotion and direction. And may he bless us too as we grow and move from one stage to another. Amen
Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!
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