This coming Sunday is Graduation Day for the high school seniors in our town. Like everyone’s graduations this year, it will be different from what the seniors hoped for. I wish it didn’t have to be that way. This year’s seniors deserve all the pomp and circumstance that every other senior class has had.
I was seventeen when I graduated from high school, and like many of this year’s graduates, I had my life planned out. Everything seemed possible, and the whole world seemed like it was mine to explore.
Four months after high school graduation, I walked to the campus of Colorado State University and went to my first class. There were three hundred people in it; my high school class had had four people, including me. As I walked into the huge classroom and found a seat, I started to panic. I thought ahead to four years of classes like that one, and I felt an overwhelming urge to run out of the classroom and never go back. Instead, I forced myself to stay. I went to the next class and the next. And I graduated four years later. Two weeks after our college graduations, Monty and I got married. As we drove out of the church parking lot with cans dragging from our bumper and “Just Hitched” written all over our car, I looked at Monty and felt the same kind of breath-taking hope that I’d felt after graduation. I thought I knew where our lives were headed; I didn’t. There was so much I didn’t know then, but I learned right along with Monty as we weathered the storms of loss, pain, and addiction:
I didn’t know that “good girls” like me could make bad choices.
I didn’t know that even if I broke every promise I’d ever made to Him, God would keep the promises He made to me.
I didn’t know that I could have gone home sick, broken, and damaged instead of waiting for healing.
I didn’t know that I could fall apart so completely and still be held by the One who had held me all my life.
I didn’t know that the desperate, dark rock bottom of my life would be the place I rediscovered hope.
I didn’t know that there was beauty in brokenness—that the places where I was broken were the ones where God’s love would someday shine the brightest.
I didn’t know that a love like Monty’s existed—faithful, persistent love that was strong enough to stay and fight for me when I couldn’t fight for myself.
I didn’t know that there would be days when fighting through the pain and just holding on, hour by hour, would be the days when I grew the most.
I didn’t know that admitting weakness took tremendous strength.
I didn’t know what I was capable of.
I didn’t know that I would keep graduating—that I would learn and move ahead to the next stage in my life, over and over.
And I didn’t know that I was worth the fight it would take to save my own life.
I know now. Every scar I bear reminds me. I also know this, and I know it down to the depths of my soul: hope is real. Change is possible. And if you hold onto hope tenaciously, relentlessly, you will make it to the other side of pain. Always.
I’ve often wondered—if I could go back in time and talk to the newly graduated 17-year-old version of myself, would I warn her? Would I tell her about the mistakes she would make and how to avoid them? No. I wouldn’t. For the rest of my life, I will be sorry for the pain that my choices caused the people I love. But every tear, every laugh, every breathless minute, and every desperate prayer led me to the life I have now—a life that is beautiful beyond what I ever could have dreamed for myself. So I’d put my arm around the innocent 17-year-old girl I was, and I’d tell her what I’d tell every graduating senior:
“You know that hope you feel right now, with the whole world at your feet? Remember it. Hold onto it with everything you have. When life hurts you, hold on and fight for that hope. You’ll always find it when you look up to the One who made you. And because He made you, you’re worth fighting for—no matter how many mistakes you make or how hard you fall. Now go—light up your world in the way only you can. There’s so much waiting for you.”
“Hold on to sixteen as long as you can
Changes come around real soon
Make us women and men.”John Mellencamp, “Jack and Diane”
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Comments 6
Some of us have also walked a similar road of life as you. If I could go back to to age sixteen would I really want to change anything I ask myself. In every failure something was learned. I had and continue to have a strong faith in God. The lyrics in a hymn called “It is well with my soul” this clearly stands out to me:
“My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! “
Bob–I love this phrase of yours: “In every failure something was learned.” If we learn from our failures and keep moving forward in faith, we can leave regret behind. Thank you for the stanza from “It Is Well.” And thank you for your words.
Your post really got me remembering and thinking, wow the lessons life teaches us. We should all be thankful that we have a loving Creator that cuts us a lot slack, and always fore gives if we only believe.
We all grow and become stronger from our mistakes, none of us would be the stronger persons we are today without the trials we have been through.
Look what today’s graduation class faces , but you know they will come through all the stuff they face but they will get through it. When I graduate in 1958 the world was on the verge of a nuclear devastation, but we are still here and life goes on with lessons learned.
This graduation class is having some unusual ceremonies and they will really remember! Down here one graduation class each student gets a full speed lap around the Daytona race track with graduation in the infield with proper seating and a mask of course. This graduation class is really stepping out in to a different world.
Love,
Grover
Grover–you’re absolutely right that these moments will be truly remembered because of their unusual-ness. The Daytona idea is so clever, and those seniors will never forget it. I like what you said about God cutting us a lot of slack. I’m so grateful He does. And grateful for you. ❤
Graduation day, big dreams, big plans. Sometimes, things don’t quite work out that way, Me, graduated pretty veteran school, graduation held at the Waldorf Astoria,,NYC.mKeynote address, NYS Supreme Court judge, his son was in the graduating class. College ahead, sure. Get married to Joan, my h,s. School sweetheart, get a good paying job, Yup, “piece of cake”.m”Well, Pilgrim”:dud not work that way, U.S. Army(Vietnam Nam), first marriage a self destruct by me.,In fact marriage #2,also “kaput”.,My saving grace, Debbie. My wife if 40 years, and a 40;plus career as. Private investigator, with a Houston Law firm, where I met Debbie, Debbie keeps my “feet planted, and head on straight”.Funally, my Mom,Marion,whiz lived to age 102, praying everyday fir her “prodigal son”, Which has worked. But, high school graduates, hold on. To your dreams, fir as long as you can.,Miss Judy Collins beautiful ballad, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes””:very prophetic. Good luck, God Bkess our graduates……Well, Sparrow, please pardon the melancholy of this “elder man”. God Bless You, Sparrow, Your writing talents are beautiful, you have passion in your words, and that is a Beautuful thing. Keep on blogging, Sparrow. Fly High.❤️TexGen
TexGen–I loved reading your comment and getting another glimpse into your life, especially that you had your graduation at the Waldorf Astoria. I’ve been there, so I can picture it so clearly. Debbie does for you what Monty does for me–keeps my feet planted and head on straight. All roads seem to have led you straight to Debbie and a wonderful long career. Thank you for the example of faith and love that you show. ❤