Finishing Well

Finishing well. This is something I've been pestered about for a good 10 years, and I'm really not THAT old, so the concept of ending well and transition is something I've had hammered into me for a good portion of my life. Still, I don't do it very well. I'm not really sure that anyone does, so I guess I can have grace with myself. And yet, I wish I did it better. I remember back in my senior year of high school I would just sleep ALL the time. Seriously, unless I was running around being active, I was probably asleep. It was easier to sleep through the idea of leaving my friends, family, and home than it was to be awake and face it.

Last year I graduated from college, and though that was a painful time of saying goodbye to my closest friends of the past four years, in a lot of ways it was not an ending for me. I did not move, I kept going to the same school, and there was not that feeling of facing the unknown. Now, a year later, I'm in a very different place. I'm excited for the future, I really am. I'm excited to be closer to my family, to start a career, and to move on with my life (sorry Azusa, but I'm ready). And yet there is this nagging feeling that it would be so much easier to not move on. I could have stayed in the same house with most of the same roommates, I could have kept my job or even had a full time job (I've had a couple of offers in Azusa), I could have stayed close to the friends I have left in the area. All of that would have been safe, but it wouldn't have been really living. Right now I'm just biding time, waiting for the next adventure, and I don't want to live my life that way! I want to LIVE the adventure. I want to live in true community with those around me (even if it IS my parents). I want to take chances on applying for jobs that I get rejected for. I want to depend on someone else to take care of me when I can't provide for myself. I WANT to be vulnerable. But that doesn't mean the transition is easy. I hear myself being impatient, sarcastic, and downright rude to the people around me who I love. Is that my way of making it easier to say goodbye? I want to excel in my last quarter of my Masters program, and yet each day I have to force myself to do my homework and learn something new (Is this blog a procrastination technique? Probably!). I can't wait to not have homework anymore, and yet I know in two months I'll be wishing I had some!

The end is hard. Some people do it well, but I still haven't figured it out. I guess that's one more thing to add to my list of ways I need God to work in my life. For today I 'll rest in the knowledge that He IS faithful and that at the end of it all I will have made it through by His grace. I just hope I don't lose too many friends or opportunities to truly live on the way :)