Tag Archives: thankfulness

Weird

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Life is weird. Growing up is weird.

I have had a number of conversations recently with friends and it seems to be a common feeling amongst us. We’re early twenties, newly graduated and life is hurtling into the next ‘stage’.

I am well aware that twenty-two is not old. In fact, it is young. And yet sometimes I feel far older than my years and at other times I don’t feel old enough to be living the life I live.

I rent a flat, I drive a car, I try and keep ThinkTwice pottering along, I write things that people read.

It’s all very weird.

I clearly remember chatting to my best friend at school, about what we’d be like when we were in our twenties! It was an amusing picture which involved having a great deal more money than we actually have!

I still surprise myself sometimes with the realisation that I am living life. I’m not just going through the motions of life, allowing it to pass me by and despite the weirdness of this growing up lark. I like it.

Life is weird.

But I’m beginning to think I quite like life.

Graduation

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After three wonderful, weird, painful and challenging years I graduated from the London School of Theology on Saturday. It was one of the best days of my life, and the pictures from the service show that I smiled ecstatically for most of it!

I also managed to cry only once – and that was when I left the room that has been my home for the last time. I had accessorised it, covered it in Cath Kidston, laughed, cried, studied and socialised in that room – and I was leaving it, and as I slid the white piece of paper with my name on it from the sign on the door I knew this was it.

Hours earlier as I had walked up the steps to shake the hands of the Acting Principal and President of LST, I heard the cheers of my classmates and looked out at my family.

Graduation reminded me how far I am now from the scared, scarred young girl who stepped through the doors three years before. I still get scared, I still carry scars, but I am getting better. Graduation felt, for me at least, that it marked something else. It marked that I had survived, when so often I felt I could not go on.

I have certainly not been alone in that feeling. Indeed, many of my classmates have fought battles that have not even featured in my nightmares. We all arrived with our own baggage. I think many of us now feel that even if that baggage has not disappeared or lightened – it has changed shape.

Because we have all changed shape. I cannot think of a single member of my class who has not changed for the better over the past three years. Above all, graduation day reminded me of God’s amazing transformative power.

God transforms. He transforms through His word. Through His Church. Through His Spirit. Through His people.

His people have shown me the love, grace and oh so gentle shoves of God.

I am well aware of the high levels of sentimentality in this post and I will take this opportunity to apologise to those of you who have been reaching for the nearest bucket!

So now I’m a graduate. I’m preparing (hopefully) for post-graduate study. To move out of my family home and live in my own place with a great friend.

It’s a new chapter, and while I am gutted to have finished the last, so far the best chapter, I can’t help but be a little excited for what is coming next!

Celebrations

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So, I turned twenty-one yesterday. I had a wonderful day. Eight years ago today I was baptised – something I had been waiting to do for nearly eight years. In the past eight years, I have become very adept at marking the anniversaries that have caused me great pain or trauma – but this year, I have been reminded to celebrate and remember the golden days, and these days contribute to our character as much as the bad days. Too often, I have turned to God in mourning or lament  – but not enough in celebration. This past week has reminded me that I have much to be thankful for. I have felt so loved! So, I’m going to try and remember all that I have to be thankful for  -both from the twenty one years that have passed, and for the hopes I have for the next twenty-one years!