The Graduate

Part of my heart is in a panic right now because my oldest daughter graduates from high school on Saturday and heads out by herself into God’s big, beautiful world.  It seems impossible that this event is immediate reality, and I join piles of parents who have stared at a commencement gown hanging in the closet and wondered how in the world this happened so fast.

All the sayings I’ve heard since her birth are true.  “Time flies!”  “The days may seem long but the years are short.”  “Cherish these moments because they won’t last.”  They didn’t, but, oh, were they delightful!  Bringing her home from the hospital, rocking her gently to sleep, seeing her wobbly first step, hearing her cute, silly voice, swinging her high at the orange playground, eating popsicles in the pool, piling in the van to visit grandparents, listening to her laugh with her sisters, serving pizza at her school on Fridays, watching her sing in the fifth grade play, cheering as she pitched a softball, kicked a soccer ball, and slammed a tennis ball, applauding her wins on the swim team, beaming as she led in the praise team, gasping as she was crowned homecoming queen, dressing her up for dinners and dances, roasting hot dogs in the back yard, popping caramel corn for family nights, making brownies and cookies for her friends, and smiling with joy as her sweet, soft heart grew larger and larger to love lots and lots of people in lots and lots of ways.  So many cherished moments.  So many precious memories. 

And now the pages of the calendar have flipped again and again and again, and the occasion of her graduation has finally arrived.

To be honest, my angst has much more to do with my faults in the past than her path in the future.  In less than three months, she’ll be heading off to a public university where pitfalls and perils abound, but where God is also busy transforming hearts and changing lives and where I’m confident she will grow in grace and get to know Him so much more.  So what I fret about is not what she will do but what I haven’t done.  

I haven’t taught her enough about cooking, sewing, and cleaning.  I haven’t trained her how to change a tire, jump-start a car, or replace a faulty battery.  I fear the times I was short, snippy, and sour will crowd her memory more than the moments I was caring and kind.  I feel uncertain that I showed her enough good and unsure that I shared enough God. I should have prayed with her more, read with her more, studied with her more, taught her more, told her more, memorized more Scripture with her, and made more time to just be with her and enjoy her laugh, her tears, her joys, and her love.   

Now the time for such is short, and I must trust that the God who created her, called her, redeemed her, and loves her more than I ever could will fill in the gaps with His grace and will guide my girl as she goes.   I want her to make the most of her college years—to meet new people, build fresh friendships, join a campus ministry, find an awesome church, yell for touchdowns, cry for break-ups, cheer for first dates (and maybe second ones too!), go on late-night donut runs, early morning training runs, and even attend class and earn a useful degree.  Someday, not too soon, I hope she meets an amazing man and becomes a blissfully married wife and an absolutely amazed mom, but most of all, more than all, I want my girl to love Jesus—passionately, purposefully, and completely, and I hope that above all the things I have taught or she has caught, she knows first and best that Jesus is life.

And so on Saturday my daughter will don her cap and gown, parade across the stage, and receive a piece of paper that says she is ready to start the next stage of life.  If based only on what her parents have put in, I would say, “I hope so,” but because God’s unfailing love and unrelenting grace, I can say, with joyful heart and teary eyes, “I know so.”

Go, my precious girl.  Go boldly and be all God’s.

And know that your mom dearly loves you.