Rachael Newham

Regular readers of this blog cannot have failed to notice that I am coming up to the end of my degree in theology. It has been the best three years of my life, and I have faced things that I had been running for for many years.

Endings are hard. The accompanying loss can is painful. I know that, as excited as I am about the next stage of my life, the thought of leaving this place I have loved so much is incredibly daunting. The loss of the safety of Bible College is particularly scary – it has been my safe place, my home for three years.

And the hardest thing about endings is that there is something about loss which revives earlier losses. I sit here and cannot help but recall the other endings, the relationships (that may still remain but change shape) the things I was all too glad to leave behind, and those which pulled hard at my heart.

I cannot lie, I am scared about what comes next, after all I am leaving home, leaving LST and beginning “adulthood” proper. 

And yet. I am excited in a way I have never been before. I am excited that I can begin the next phase of my life. I am excited that I am not entering into the next phase of my life as battered and bruised as I was when I first walked through the doors of LST. I have grown up, met friends I will keep for life and learned more about God, who He is and His relationship of love to the world He created than I ever thought possible. 

I am looking forward to working this out in the world. I’m also petrified. But I’m beginning to think that fear is okay as long as it does not prevent me from acting out the calling God has placed on my life. 

For as this chapter ends, I have to trust in the Author who has my story in His unfailing hands.