in case you missed that--i did it! i finished school! my time at UNC is over & done! i had a moment this morning as i lazily woke up & enjoyed a slow morning of hot tea, quiet time, and pajamas--a moment where i realized that i will never wake up & go to class again (at least for the foreseeable future). and i was a bit sad. but other than that, it's all excitement!
yesterday, clearly, was a momentous day. it was also a long day, full of ups and downs. after my test i went to the daily grind and hung out with God for awhile. "Come & see what the Lord has done!" psalm 46 declares. Indeed, i thought. Look what he has done with a mess like me, and look what he is doing. the fact that i even graduated with an actual major is impressive, never mind one that i genuinely enjoyed. i am hemmed in behind. and look where he is taking me! on an amazing adventure into his service with a great group of students, a great church community, and a great staff team. quite poignantly, i checked my voice mail as i left the daily grind, and scott (the youth minister at crossroads) had left a message--an encouraging one as he usually does--that wished me a spectacular day & repeated his oft-expressed sentiment that they can't wait until i join them in kentucky. what a joy to know that as i close one chapter, i have a fresh new page open & a new life story raring to go. i am hemmed in before.
i had lunch with the ever-delightful katie smith on the quad, our beautiful quad, in the speckled shady-sunlight. this is what i will miss. then i had to babysit cameron for the afternoon & while he was napping, i came face-to-face with a gripping realization. i like to watch golf. i turned on nbc to catch a rerun of ellen, and instead i sat enthralled watching the us open playoff between tiger woods & rocco mediate. let me slow that down for you--i. watched. golf. all on my own, because i wanted to. and i was sad when cameron's dad came home & i missed the sudden death round at the very end. my realization is this: in most instances, i am very glad to become a reflection of who my parents are, but in some ways i never expected to be like them, and this is one small example. dad, i like to watch golf. because you do. because even though it's slower than baseball (yawn), i like watching it because i've always watched it with you. hmmm, it's funny how we turn out in the end. never a carbon copy, but with distinct streaks of our parents, the good & the bad, shaping who we are.
after getting turned down for a credit card later that afternoon (and moping about it on the phone with mom--thanks), i spent most, in fact all, of my evening at my Hebrew Bible professor's house. he had the class over for pizza at 7 and we ended up staying til midnight! i can't even really tell you what we talked about much, though we did spend a lot of time just watching his adorable child perform for our attention. we did talk about solving all the worlds problems one teacher salary at a time, and the brilliance of the reli. professors at unc (apparently my wildly fascinating death & afterlife professor, z-man, took the GRE before he knew much english--and was accepted into yale...), and world travels. the photo album came out, because obviously as a biblical scholar, our professor had been to quite a few places in the Near East--including, among other things, the sweet buildings filmed for the third indiana jones (the cup one, amanda), where the holy grail was housed. i had to bite my tongue when he got to the israel pictures, not to say, i've been there, ooh i've been there! one thing i must comment on retrospectively. while i do agree with prof. reynold's opinion that the sea of galilee might not fully deserve the designation as a sea, i hardly think that, as he ( jokingly) said, it was small enough that Jesus could have cleared it on foot by getting a good running start from a nearby hilltop. maybe not a sea, definitely more than a "pond"--truly majestic, wouldn't you say?
in the midst of all this, at 11pm to be exact, i got a call from scott and stepped out to answer it. as he had told me on his message earlier that day, the youth were on a rafting trip & they called to say hey! it was delightful--scott said he wanted me to feel included since i am the only team member still MIA, and i really did. i chatted with one of the senior girls i met while visiting in february, and i could hear all the noise in the background. then tim (the other youth pastor) had all the kids shout "congrats on graduating whitney!!" and that was really cool. i do wish i could be there with them right now, but i appreciate the thoughtful ways in which scott is working to make me part of the community before i even arrive (these are the kinds of things that make me trust in the sheer blessing of this experience). and good grief, i only have a few short weeks left and i will be there! yes!!
well, that was yesterday, but if you can stand to read on, this weekend was quite eventful as well. my little brother, the baby of the family, graduated from high school. this is kin
d of silly, but i remember thinking to myself when i was younger, maybe about 10 or so (or whenever you start realizing that little kids have to grow up and won't stay small forever), that here i have this small, white-blond headed, ball of energy little brother, and one day, he's going to be grown up. that's going to be weird to witness, i thought to myself then. well, now it's happened. he's taller than me now (though not by too much ;) and a fellow south meck graduate (a proud moment indeed--ok, just kidding). it was really good to be there with the family and watch him graduate, especially after having missed jordan's high school graduation because i was in mexico. then at church on sunday, father's day, our worship minister brought his little girl up on stage to sing to her (this relates, i promise). during the offering, he sang the steven curtis chapman song, "cinderella", which is one of those dumb songs i love to hate because if you really listen to the words, cheesy as they are, it makes you all sad and nostalgic and leaves you wanting to cry and hold onto your mommy, blah blah blah. this one is a much better option that "butterfly kisses" though, if you ask me. (our other favorite is that song that says "let my love give you roots and help you find your wings." blubber-sniff). anyway, the chorus of the song, which is about a dad watching his little girl grow up, goes like this: so i will dance with cinderella, i don't want to miss even one song. because all too soon the clock will strike midnight, and she'll be gone.after this weekend, our family has had a big bell toll, counting down the hours til midnight when us kids will be gone. will graduated high school, and will leave home for college in the fall. mom will be left with an empty nest, because despite the insistence of her friends with live-in daughters one year older than me, i'm not coming back home after this summer. i think my clock is at about 11:58 right now. i'm truly on the brink of wrapping up childhood--the independence-testing period of college is done and i'm entering full-fledged adulthood. i still have one more week in chapel hill to see friends one last time, one week to pack things up at home, a weekend of wedding festivities, then 12 chimes and i'm gone.
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when i sit and when i rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. (psalm 139: 1-5)
please expect more of these ridiculously elaborate metaphors. like i said at the beginning of this ridiculously long post, i am newly graduated with a college degree. so i have time on my hands and thoughts that need channeling. blame it on donald miller. i'm starting to read "searching for God knows what" and i'm sure his quirkiness will influence me. thanks for sticking around. hope the pictures helped :) much love.
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