Moving on...

I have spent the morning packing books, pictures, and school supplies to take home for storage until I get a job and leave home again. It is strange knowing that I will not return to campus in the fall. In less than a month, I will graduate and move on with my life. As one of my professors said a couple of years ago, "Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes". It seems like no sooner do I say "Hello" and get settled than it is time to say "Goodbye" and uproot my life. For a person like myself who often has difficulty accepting the inevitability of change, such times are challenging, to say the least.

To be honest, it is all about control. When I am settled and accustomed to my surroundings, I feel in control of my life. During the times when I am fearful and doubtful (flying, tornadoes, moving to a new place), I feel out of control. In my mind, I am no longer in the driver's seat. I like to think I have it all together by my own ability. Such a belief is arrogant and foolish. In reality, I am never in control; God is the one with ultimate authority and power.

Wednesday was my final day of practicum. Those 47 days challenged my faith, my attitude, and in some cases, long-held, unfair opinions of others. I went back and forth between optimism at the prospects of life in general to negativity and despair (let's just say that the life of a hermit on some far-flung mountainside sounded really appealing at times). Then one week, tragedy struck far away to a bunch of people whom I did not know and much closer to home to someone I did know. I experienced one of those convicting moments (times when it is just you and God, and no one else has a clue what is going on in your spirit) where I said to myself, "Shame on you, Holly" for everything about which I had silently (and not so silently) complained, griped, bickered, and thrown pity parties.

I had succumb to Satan---the master of discouragement and the chief of pity parties. I chose to focus on a little rock in my shoe, all while ignoring others who were trying to roll boulders out of their paths or come to terms with a mountain that would never move this side of heaven (death of a loved one, terminal illness).