Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Graduation (08/30/04)
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TITLE: "School Days, School Days, dear old golden rule days..." By KAREN FASIG 09/01/04 |
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All to soon your senior year approached and adulthood loomed. Money flew out the window for class pictures, that coveted class ring, and that ever sought after prom dress. Ideas about the future bubbled out.
Where should I go to college? Do I want to be a doctor, lawyer, or maybe I should do a stint in the Peace Corp? All in the hopes of finding your true calling. Then the all-important day arrives and the cap and gown that signify your right of passage from teen to adult grace your body. The dream is within your grasp.
Life doesn’t always allow dreams to come to fruition. Something happens to you before you can grasp that diploma and your whole life takes on a new meaning. Your hopes and dreams must be put on the back burner, maybe never to be realized.
Graduation doesn’t occur for you and the opportunities granted by that High School Diploma go out the window. You are destined only to be a factory worker, albeit a good one. Days turn into years, and years into decades, and you marry, raise a family, and continue on in the life that’s been handed to you.
High school reunions pass you by and when you occasionally run into an old school chum you try your best to avoid them. Not wanting to answer the proverbial questions about your status in life. Shame overtakes you, as you admit to yourself, that, in the world’s eyes, you don’t count for much.
Then one day, your life takes another drastic change. Something is drawing you to an area of life not experienced before. The calling becomes stronger and stronger until it can’t be ignored any longer.
You finally listen and know that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. This is the most important thing to ever come down the pike, and you need to grab it, and hold onto it for the rest of your life.
The cap and gown will be yours. The sheepskin will hang on your wall for all to see. The disappointment in your Father’s eye, from years of waywardness, will be replaced with a twinkle as you stand to accept the diploma of his outstretched hand.
The thrill of graduation day envelops you and the feeling of completion it brings is finally understood. The diploma you’ve just accepted isn’t made of parchment and it has red stains all over it.
Many in the world would say you’re a fool for accepting such a thing, but you reach out your hand and accept what’s offered to you and all that it stands for. The status of your lot in life is now everything you ever dreamed it could be. By accepting Christ’s blood stained hand you have just graduated from sinner to saint!