I had the honor of presenting the final “charge” to the senior class at their graduation yesterday. Here’s what I said:
Looking at you all today, as you are about to close one chapter of your life and begin the next, I can’t help but remember you as the 8th graders I met when we were all masked that fall and winter of 2021! What I mostly recall from your 8th-grade class was the grace and patience you extended to me, as a first-year teacher.
By 9th grade, you were my older, more mature students, and I received your grace again as my mom battled cancer, and I made several trips up north to take care of her. You showed such loving concern, even making special care packages for my mom. I’ll always remember the sympathetic looks you gave me, back in class, as I shared my feelings. Then, as the semester ended, many of you boys lifted my spirits with your spectacular car ride rendition of a Bruno Mars song! As a class, you are delightfully fun, light-hearted, and compassionate.
Getting a chance to reunite this year in American Government class was such a joy! I hope we can all agree that we’ve grown a lot since those initial years together. And that’s what I want to focus on in this charge: growth. Or, more specifically, how to embrace the messy and emotional process of growing.
As we stand here, celebrating the completion of your Cambridge education, you should rightly feel proud and accomplished. But I hope you don’t feel done growing because, I’m sorry to tell you, the process of growth is a lifelong one.
When you start college, everything will be new, and you’ll feel like a beginner. Places and people will be unfamiliar, and you’ll have to face those challenging feelings about where you fit in and how to find your people. Then, you’ll begin to feel comfortable and settled in that space, just in time to graduate and head into your first job, where you’ll again be starting at the beginning. The same can be said if you get married and have children. You’ll be new at marriage, new at parenting, and then the kids will start growing. The skills you’ll have mastered for raising toddlers will not qualify you for raising teenagers. Then, just as you get that down, they’ll grow up, and you’ll have to learn how to be an empty-nester! On the career front, the skills that will make you successful in an entry-level position won’t suffice for a more senior role. Then, if you decide to change careers, you’ll be facing a whole new learning curve!
So, we’ve established that you’ll be growing and learning throughout your life, and in each phase you “won’t know what you don’t know”. In other words, life is complex, and understanding will reveal itself to you slowly, over time. But let’s be honest, the “not knowing” is a hard place to be.
Let me suggest that, rather than being paralyzed by the unknown, you can embrace it and turn to God for assurance. Proverbs 3:5-6 says: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. This verse has such sweet gospel comfort, but let’s focus on the line that can easily be skipped over: “Do not lean on your own understanding”. As you graduate today from a school that’s promised to teach you how to “Think Well,” it may seem odd to caution you not to trust your own understanding, but hear me out.
As you enter this next chapter, I encourage you to remember that one of the normal parts of being human is realizing how limited we are. We are finite creatures, which means we do not have enough wisdom, strength, or insight in ourselves to carry life on our own. But that limitation is not meant to lead us to despair; it is meant to lead us to dependence. There is deep comfort in knowing that God does not ask us to be self-sufficient or all-knowing. He provides what we need, and His grace is enough for every season of growth, uncertainty, and change.
In his book, Grace Upon Grace, Pastor John W. Kleinig says, “The righteous do not know their own way; they do not see where they are going; they travel on an unseen journey with an unseen guide. But the Lord knows their way; invisibly He leads them step-by-step along their way with Him.”
Part of God’s faithfulness in guiding your journey is by placing specific people around you in each season of life. So, in addition to continually praying for guidance, you should ask questions and seek mentors. Talk to your elders – parents, teachers, pastors, friends. Ask people to be honest with you and be willing to feel the emotions that will inevitably arise. Being honest about your need for support is a vulnerable place to be. You may be tempted to hide your feelings of inadequacy or the fear of not being enough. Please don’t. Those moments in life, when you’re confronted with your brokenness and don’t see how to move forward, are the places where people can come alongside you to carry the burden. They may not do it perfectly, but true intimacy and connection are formed when you enter those hard conversations and confront what is usually unspoken.
Ultimately, I’m asking you to ponder and embrace the wisdom of Paul in Ephesians 4:15, “Speaking the truth in love, we are able to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Not only should you find people who are willing to speak the truth in love to you, but you also should be willing to experience the discomfort of being honest with your friends who likewise need the truth spoken lovingly to them. My prayer for you is that God will provide people who will kindly tell you what you need to know as you encounter each new phase of life.
I know I speak for all of your teachers when I say, we’ll be here rooting for you and so excited to see how you’ll continue to grow in this next chapter of your life.
Let’s end this charge with our special word this year, which fittingly means, “Let’s go!”
Andiamo!