I wrote a different blog yesterday but this morning I’ve decided it’s not what I want to use to reflect on this season. So here's to take two.
I like to make a big deal out of endings. I always do. Somehow that’s the only way I know how to make sense of it. I tend to spend every moment saying “guys this is our last …..” desperate to raise the emotional intensity of every second to somehow match the strength of the emotions spinning within me. Even when I know it drives the people around me crazy. I can’t help it. If I am one thing I am sentimental. Everyone around me knows it well. And that sentimentality makes it hard to sit down and write this because my expectations for ending well are SO high.
I’ve been working myself into overwhelm so often this week. Often to the point where my brain gets stuck spinning. So deeply wanting to make something out of every little thing, to end “well” (according to my own crazy definition), and to do it all while showing up perfectly for everyone around me. However the reality is that I am tired (and beautifully finite), and I can not make that all come to pass. But as I sit at work and reflect, grounded by texts from my closest people telling me to breathe deeply, I am reminded that the beauty of this year has never and will never exist as a result of my effort. I am reminded that this season, in the most beautiful way, has surrounded and held me. That its meaning does not exist because I am able to articulate it perfectly. I am changed and I am the same. I am brave and I am afraid.
This is the part where I want to write about the deep lessons I have learned and how I am perfect at resting in transition now. How I am so open handed and trusting. That I am not afraid anymore because I’ve had this big revelation. But the reality is that I’m still the girl who moves through the changing seasons kicking and screaming. However I am learning. Slowly. Very slowly. Like so much more slowly than I want to.
The reality is that the value of fellows will not be in ending with a flourish. It is in all of the ways that this program has held me. It is in all the ways this community has held me. In all of the ways that both of those point me to my Savior who holds me more securely that I can ever comprehend. I wrote at the beginning of the year that all I was seeking from fellows was to know and be known, to love and be loved. And thanks be to God I can say that has happened here. I left Wheaton a year ago saying “He has been faithful to me here” and joyfully get to echo that refrain over Raleigh as well. My God has been faithful.
So here's to being gentle with ourselves as once again in our twenties everything changes. To clinging with stubborn hope (even when I REALLY don’t want to) that the Lord can provide once again. That I have not yet used up his goodness. That he holds me as I struggle to hold all that I want to hold.
This year I have written 8 blog posts where I have tracked 24 different statistics. I have cried 116 times. I have been in Raleigh 243 days and a fellow 239 of them. We’ve been on 12 retreats. I have filled 234 pages of a notebook (not counting the probably more than that in my journal). I’ve been shaped by 14 people I hold dear. And I’m grateful.
This doesn’t really feel sufficient for a final blog post. It's not at all an adequate expression at all of how grateful I am and all the little ways I have been changed and all the people who poured into me and this program. But that's okay. Just trust me it's there anyways.
Even here his hand will lead and hold me.
All my love!
Lola
PS- Celeste I’m so in for alumni blogs ! everyone just start emailing me your monthly updates pls and thank you