It was a crazy but wonderful weekend! I found myself in the company of good friends throughout the weekend at Senior Night at Centennial Lakes in Edina, polkaing with friends at Gasthofs, worshipping the night before commencement, cheering on our fellow classmate at the St. Paul Saints game, and eating at community BBQ.
Of course, the main event was on Sunday as my classmates and I gathered together in our black polyester gowns and got ready to end what has been an equally wonderful and frustrating journey at times. This is one of those times when pretty much everyone is happy to be there and the company was fantastic. Most of us were a bit giddy and the females even let out a large cheer when we found out that our graduating MDiv class had more females than males in it. We processed in and found a seats. I had the luck of sitting next to two people I knew fairly well, including the first new friend I had made at seminary. It was a great service, there was no doubt about it and the professor the students had elected to speak brought it home.
However, the service provided an extra emotional wallop for us in the form of our class speaker. I've written a bit before about one of our classmates who was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of leukemia earlier in the year. He's had quite the fight of it and had a bone marrow transplant this spring. It's been amazing to see the seminary rally around this through prayer, encouragement, special services, and visits. And this Sunday, even though rumor had it that he was too weak to make graduation, the Academic Dean paused before announcing the name and said that applause would be welcome for this student. As he called out Scott's name everyone leapt to their feet with applause. Here in front of us was proof that God does answer prayers, that community can make a difference, and that God was very much alive and real. It was extremely powerful and moving. Then, after all the graduates had been present with their diplomas he delivered his address. It was short and sweet and lifted up the importance of this God-given community.
There is so much that my past four years have been about here at Luther and on my internship in Charlotte. It has been about learning and growing. It's been about failing and then learning to start over again in spite of everything. It's been about questioning everything and learning that not having the answers is okay. It's been about growing in my faith and understanding what it is that I'm called to. It's been about learning about God and realizing that I can never understand it all. But, it's also been about learning what it means to be the church with these friends, future colleagues, classmates, teachers, students, and family. Because being the church means being a community. And being a community can be hard sometimes whether it's because we're run down, we're facing various life crises, we're scared of being intimate, we're forced into competition with each other, or we're facing the pain of death and losing an important member of the community. But there is so much joy and support to be found in this community. Often, God will use this community to lift up an individual in whatever life situation they find themselves facing.
These past four years this is what many of us have experienced with each other and we've weaved our way through classes, papers, exams, marriages, babies, breakups, death, health issues, internships, moves, frustrations with the church, jobs falling through, big questions about our futures, and everything in between. And I know that I couldn't have made it this far without my classmates, with those I have shared both tears of joy and tears of sorrow, when I need prayers or vise versa. Seeing and listening to Scott's wise words reminded me of all of these things and reminded me of the many things beyond simply a degree that I was praising God for on that day.
It's been one heckuva journey, there's no way around it. If I had the choice to do it all over again knowing what I do now, would I? In a heartbeat!
Here are some fun graduation pics. Notice the fun, colorful hoods signifying the Masters degree. It's been a great ride. Thanks to all of your for your prayers and support. I truly mean it when I say I couldn't have done this without you!!!!
Kris, me, Becca, and Emily. Kris and I graduated with MDiv degrees and Becca and Emily graduated with MA degrees (Masters of Arts).
Derek, me, and Noah. Derek was the first new friend I made at seminary and Noah and I pretty much have done everything together since undergrad (we were on an outreach team together our freshman year at Gustavus, worked at Wapo together for three summers, were RA's together in the same freshman dorm, and then went to Luther together. Whew!).
Stacy and I showing off our degrees, proof that we actually made it!
