congratulations

The temptation is great to slap up another post that attempts to quantify life in google images... but I must consign that certain moments require the effort of words from people... so here, with no particular forethought from a two-day college graduate, are some words...

I find it strange, at this supposedly auspicious junction, to actually be congratulated. Now naturally I'll accept any amount of random joy and felicitations from my friends & family, but the thought that I've accomplished something truly great is beyond me at this point. As far as I can tell, all I've done for four years is gone to a little state school three miles away, studied, worked some campus jobs, and accomplished what millions of other young adults could have done with probably less grousing. It was my job for 4 years. I was just doing it, and wonder now about all the buzz.

But that's just grousing again. For I forget easily. I forget how I got here. I forget the countless hours (amounting to *days* really, if you think about it) that they have put up with my endless babble about literature or chemistry, or French...
I forget about the dining room table that they let me take over, the cups of hot tea brought to my bedroom, the celebrations that were held each time I finished a semester.
I've forgotten that they supported, prayed, and cheered me to where I am today. They deserve to celebrate this milestone, for they helped bring me here.
And then I forget about the frantic prayers before tests, prayers that were answered... amazingly, wildly beyond my desert. About the agonizing periods of writers block into which came clarity. The moments of fatigue into which came either strength or rest. (How could I forget them??? And is the weakness so far behind me that the congratulations are now really for me?)

And I forget about the times (there were so, so few of them) that I was on the giving, rather than the recieving end, of important information. That someone who was munching their dinner or discussing their homework got a little stab of the gospel into their day. How many times, hundreds... maybe thousands? could I have said something that I didn't? I forget that the God who endures such cowardice still promises bright and beautiful things in the future. That is something to remember, when college is long gone.

Yet it's done. It's over. And in the blink of an eye I am standing with four years of unpayable mercies behind me, and the cheers and encouragements of all around me. Congratulations?? I'm just a little puddle into which He has come along and dumped a load of diamonds. And oh, if I were just worthy of the gift...

But these are all just post-graduation mumblings... a piece of clay with eyes wide at what the Potter has done. And to all the clay's startled misgivings, He simply says in Hosea 14:4, Oh yes

I will love them...
freely.