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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Words to my daughter on her graduation from college


    Congratulations!! You’ve made it!   9 years of elementary school.  4 years of high school and now 5 years of college are complete.  No more sweating out classes and papers.   No more trying to figure out class schedules and figuring out which courses to take.  The course work is all complete and now you are a graduate. It’s a time of celebration of what you’ve accomplished and anticipation of what lays ahead for you.  I wanted to share with you something that was handed down to me when I was young that has helped me.

    As you know, when I grew up in I mowed lawns for spending money.  One of my customers was a retired Lutheran pastor named Pastor Zimmerman.  He was a wonderful person to talk to and for me he was a surrogate grandfather as he went to seminary with my grandfather who was also was a Lutheran Pastor and had passed away before I was born.  He always invited me in after for lemonade and ginger-snap cookies after I was done.  When I graduated from high school and was moving on to college I decided to hand over my lawn business to someone else as I would not have time to do it.  On my last time with him he gave me some grandfatherly advice.  He said to me
"You probably played on the monkey bars at school as a child, and the challenge was to get from one side to the other without falling.  The trick to getting across is not losing your momentum as you swing and the best way to do this is to let go of the previous rung as soon as you grab hold of the next rung.   If you hesitate and hold on too long you will be stuck between the two rungs and will lose all of your forward momentum.  You can still get across but now you will have to exert a lot of energy to swing to the next rung.  Life is like that.  We are moving from one rung to the next in life and we need to let go of the past behind us."
    He went on to share a Bible verse with me that I have always kept mindful of.  It is from Philippians 3:13-14
"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind me and straining toward what is ahead.  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus"





   As you swing from this rung to the next that lays ahead of you reach-grab-and-let-go.    That doesn’t mean we forget the people we have worked with or spent time with?  Of course not.  It means we take them with us in our heart and in our memories  but we must leave all our decisions, mistakes and hurts behind us.  We can look at the past with fondness and learn from your mistakes, but we cannot stay here.  We must move on to the next rung and the rung after that.   Press on for the goal God has set before you.  Keep moving knowing God is there to dust you off and help you get back on if you fall.

   We are very proud of you!  You’re on to the next rung in life and moving forward!
 

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