Now, I have been supremely blessed in this journey. I have a great church that has been so supportive and flexible with my work schedule, a wonderful family that is constantly encouraging and cheering me on, and most significantly a loving wife who has done everything from running through flash cards with me, to making pots and pots of coffee, to knowing when I need 8-10 hours of quiet, to consistently telling me how proud she is of me, to succeeding and thriving at her job while I worked part time... I'm extremely supported.
While I have been trying to process this oddly unsettling thing called graduation, that has been the consistent theme: I have been supported and loved the entire time, and at no point have I been left out on my own. But even though this is a time of celebration and relief... it is a time for me to reflect as well.
I know I have had people around me the entire time, and yet there have been times I complained, moaned, felt like throwing things against the wall, felt like giving up and flippin' burgers at McDonald's. What a pansy! I mean, this is just school, right? That's not to belittle things, but I haven't done this alone, I haven't been unprepared, and yet I have been a baby at times.
I think about Christ and all that he endured, and wonder just how alone he must have felt at times. This is the Son of God, eternally proceeding from the Father, who saw the foundations of all the world laid down, who understood the weight of his task from the beginning... talk about feeling like no one gets it! Yet he continued on, relying on the Father, praying, and being led to the point of his own death where he drank the cup of God's wrath for all humanity until finally he said, "It is finished."
[Christ] though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:6
My goal and prayer is that this phase of my life would be marked by the servant heart of Christ, not believing or acting as though I am owed anything, but relying on the power of God through the Holy Spirit that every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
