Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Attention Seniors


This is my daughter Jamie and my son Thomas. Daughter Katie's not in this picture.
Anybody a high school senior and feeling a bit anxious about the future? Where to go to college?Who your roommate will be? What to major in? Have you applied to several and not heard back? Have you visited any campuses and still don't know what to do? Or, if you're not going the college route do you know what you'd like to do after high school? Do you know what path you're going to follow? Have you decided what you love to do? Your areas of giftedness?
Jamie is 28, Katie is 25, and Thomas is 18. When we took Katie to visit a college, do you know what scared her? The tour guides were wearing navy blue jackets. She said, "I'm not smart enough to wear a jacket like that." Oh, the fear that creeps in.

Thomas is filling out college applications and he'd love to play baseball in college. He doesn't know what he wants to major in (well, he hasn't shared it with his mother if he does). Almost daily he'll say, "Did I hear from any colleges today? Did you get anything in the mail?"

Here's what I can say as a mother of three--two on the other side of the "what will I do with my future" decision. It's okay if you don't have it all figured out right now. It's okay to be confused. It's okay if you're afraid of the "blue jackets." God will be with you through each fear and decision if you ask Him to help you.

Jamie and Katie ended up graduating from the same college one day apart. I'd have never predicted that. They began as freshmen in two separate colleges--neither graduating from that initial school.
There will probably be some surprises coming your way over the next few years. As much as we want to, we can't figure everything out ahead of time.

I prayed really hard when the girls were seniors--prayed they'd find God's perfect plan for their lives. I prayed they'd have wisdom as they chose a college, friends, and a career. This may sound odd, but as I'm writing in my prayer journal for Thomas, my prayers are shorter. Sometimes, I just write one word. THOMAS. I sort of smile on the inside because I know God knows his heart--just as He did Jamie's and Katie's. He holds the future. He knows the twists and turns. And when we surrender to Him, He takes our choices (even those that seem like mess ups) and works His Way.

If any seniors are in that what at I going to do after I graduate place, I'd love to add your names to my prayer journal.

"For I know the plans that I have for you, " declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11


So much love,

Julie

2 comments:

Steph said...

I'm currently a second-year in college and it's about that time for all of us to decide on majors, and sort of decide on life plans. Everyone's really confused and kind of worried about it, and I'm just so thankful I don't have to decide on anything by myself, I have the help of the alpha and the omega, the Author of everything. I just pray for ears to hear his voice and the obedience to carry out his will for my life.

Along those lines, here's a favorite quote of mine:

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Anonymous said...

Please add me to your prayer journal. I graduate in may but im very nervous about the future. I have to make a big decision after graduation and its becoming very hard. I'd really appreciate the prayers. Thank you.