Beauty for Ashes

Tonight, one of my sisters will be receiving an honors medallion from her University. She is graduating from college tomorrow but the ceremony tonight is for recognizing students with a 3.5+ GPA or 3.0 with a personal achievement.

Finally, after all the years of school, the presentations, projects, study sessions, lack of sleep, frustrations, all nighters… it comes down to the “walk.” It is the moment where a graduate’s friends and family come to join the campus community in witnessing the confirmation of the degree you have worked so hard for.

When I walked for my ceremonies last year, there was a feeling of accomplishment, success, relief, and even a tinge of sadness. This was it, the end of my amazing college life. It reminds me of the text in Isaiah 61: 3 “beauty for ashes.” While college for me was not a handful of ashes, it was definitely something that had to be let go of to embrace the next step – entering what is often called “the real world.”

While it may seem wrong for me to compare ashes to college, the point is that we humans tend to get satisfied with something lesser than God wants to give us. As His children, He wants to give us the best, all we have to do is let go of what we have in our hands – be it addictions such as drugs and narcotics, bad habits, movie shows, computer games, books, food, even seemingly healthy things like sleep and exercise – so we can grasp what He has to give us which is more than what we can picture or hope for.

To all graduating seniors, congratulations! "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21), you haev fought teh good fight, you haev finished the race (2 Timothy 4:7).

The world is ready to be conquered. Make a difference, leave your mark. Go shine your light.