Friday || Reflections on a Chapter Ended

Today marks the end of a chapter in my life.

 

Today I officially graduate from college.

 

Studying and course work has been a part of my life for over four years, so it feels surreal not to have any more deadlines or degree requirements hanging over my head. Writing discussion posts, reading textbooks, and researching for papers are like breathing for me. The part I will miss the most is the deep, accelerated learning. Not that I won’t continue to learn, research, and write on my own….

As I reflect on the last several years, I can see the Lord’s faithful hand directing my steps in accordance with His plan for my life. When I entered the college phase, I had my own picture of what the finish line would look like, where I would be, and how that was going to take place. Needless to say, I never imagined I would be where I am today.

And that’s okay.

Pre-college me would have been frustrated, disappointed, and scared if I had known the Lord was taking me somewhere other than my desired destination. Looking back, I am so incredibly grateful that I didn’t get my own way in the end. I am so glad that I don’t have to worry about the future. One of the biggest lessons was really learning Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” For me, that means faithful obedience to Him, even in the face of a misty, dark pathway.

“God is God. Because He is God,

He is worthy of my trust and obedience.

I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will,

a will that is unspeakably beyond

my largest notions of what He is up to.”

-   Elisabeth Elliot

 

 Now, as I close one of the chapters in my life, I find myself in another season of waiting. I know what I’m supposed to be doing right now, today, but a year from now? I have no idea. From time to time, I do get anxious, but I know it is all in His hands and I am thrilled to see what He will do next.

My prayer is that I would increasingly grow in the grace and knowledge of Him as I step into a new chapter, learning evermore to cast myself in utter abandonment at His feet for His glory.

“It is an older faith that learns to swing out into nothingness

and drop down full weight on God – the broken-up nest of former

‘experiences’ left behind – nothing between us and the abyss

but God Himself. Trained faith is a triumphant gladness

in having nothing but God – not rest, no foothold –

nothing but Himself. A triumphant gladness in swinging

out into that abyss, rejoicing in every fresh emergency

that is going to prove Him true. ‘The Lord alone’ –

that is trained faith.”

-   Lilias Trotter