School supplies stock shelves at stores, emails arrive about schedule pick ups, senior photo sessions get booked, google calendar dates beckon to be added…they all tell me it won’t be long at all until the pace of my life quickens.

I’m not ready.

It’s a senior year for one of my kids which means lots of extra…stuff. Lots of extra questions for them. Lots of extra questions for me. Lots of coaching through a year of persevering through what they are ready to let go. Constant conversations extending hope for a future that is still murky, the outlines forming but the substance unknown.

Accolades and awards offer less and less motivation and the goal, in our home at least today, is to just cross the finish line. To press into resources still forming in the soul to live life that is truly life. Time will reveal what gets borne through such seasons of endurance.

I know there’s hope in the chaos and uncertainty of the senior year. I’ve walked through it already with one child and dozens of college students.

The path is always loopy and fraught with uncertainty but through these big life transitions I look back and see:

the next steps revealed as each step is taken

most of the questions of the fall somehow gain direction by spring

faith required even for those that are 100% certain of their direction

friendships deepen and form in seasons of transition for those that continue to cultivate them

these big moments always needing to yield to farther-reaching truths of identity

Because graduating is one milestone in a long journey of twists and bends. It’s easy to see it loom with more import than it deserves. It’s not the final goal of life. There are much bigger goals worth pursuing that involve integrity of character, perseverance, and hope.

May this milestone and all it takes to get to it yield more of what is required to pursue even loftier yet less celebrated vistas.