To Show Myself Approved

Some of you who read my blog may have gotten the impression that Graduation was going to be rough for me.
It was.

But it wasn't just rough. God gave me a something on Saturday that I will never forget and I need to share it!

"But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God."
~1 Corinthians 4:3-5

With Pete gone for a conference on Saturday, I found myself rather alone, and really needing somone to be there. I turned to God, rather ashamedly, because I have been afraid to ask Him for anything lately... I've been trying to keep myself off of His radar so that I stay out of trouble. *wry grin*

But anyway, after a very depressed Friday night, I woke up deciding that I was going to at least think about God for the day, and so I spent some time in His Word. Nothing huge jumped out at me, but I didn't feel alone anymore, and that was good. Then He gave me something to pray about for Pete, and that was good too.

It was as if God was just asking me to let Him be there with me, just us, in our special friendship with Him as my Abba, and me as His beloved. "I started this work in You. I was here at the beginning of this story. Won't you let Me be the one to be here at what seems to be the end of it all?"

I started out scared, not really wanting to talk to anyone but Pete on my cell phone, and trying not to feel like a failure for not being able to have survived PHC to walk with my class. So many memories came flooding back, from the meals at Orientation and meeting some of my friends for the first time, to the funny finals memories (ie: Brownfield gone nuts!) and the friendships that went to pot. I felt like I was going to blow apart with it.

And then they came down the aisle in their caps and gowns, and I was officially left behind. But I wasn't really. The verse on the front of the program was the verse that God gave to me to live during our freshman year.

"Thus says the LORD: 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,' says the LORD."
~Jeremiah 9:23-24

The verse that they opened the graduation with was a verse that God led Pete to pray for me shortly after He told Pete that I was His.

"For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy."
~Colossians 1:9-11

The song that the class picked was the song that God had given me on Friday night when I was wrestling with my desire to have gotten a diploma, to have somehow measured up in the eyes of so many of the people who graduated on Saturday.

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Brought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

As I realized that I truly meant every word of that song, the tears came on so that I couldn't sing it. Me. Not being able to sing.

Then it was time for the speaker to get up. I braced myself during the flowery introduction as Jack Hayes carried on about David Robinson's accomplishments and character. I was not prepared to see Mr. Robinson get up to his full seven feet and share his heart with the people who were listening to him, contrasting his success in the world's eyes with what God had done in his life. It was awesome. Here, at their graduation, the people I had prayed over for four years were *finally* getting to hear from a respected speaker what God had taught me to want! It was so fitting.

I knew that it was an end for me. A swallowtail butterfly drifted across the audience during the ceremony, and as I watched it flutter past, I sensed a letting go in my heart.

Saturday's graduation was an end for me. As the students stood to receive their diplomas, as they walked across the stage, as they came back down the aisle under the hot sun, I realized that if no one ever realized that I had prayed, if they never appreciated a thing I had done for them personally or for the school, if they never even knew I existed--God knew. During my freshman year, I asked Him for the degree I wanted most of all, the degree of A.U.G.--approved unto God. On Saturday, May 15, 2005, I received that degree, the knowledge that I had lived my calling to pray, to love, to hope, to dream...

Now, it's time for me to move forward, into a future I can't see, don't know. I'm moving forward with a wonderful guy, and that's amazing to me--I never saw it coming... but what is most important to me is not my joy over my engagement or upcoming wedding. I am moving into a future that God knows, as a stranger here, walking a road I do not know or understand. But He promised me this: that He will never leave me nor forsake me.

There is yet another verse God gave me during the first night of orientation in August of 2001.

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them."
~Isaiah 42:16

He has led me, and I know He will continue to lead me as I learn each day to acknowledge Him in all of my ways. Wow, wow, wow.

"I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed. "
~Psalm 34:1-5