By: JuliannaDear Father, The clock is ticking on my school year, and May is right around the corner. In some ways, it feels like it can’t come soon enough. School is hard and I’m tired. But I’m also nervous. May also means the end of the structured routine of high school and an endless world of possibilities in which I somehow have to find my place. Almost every day, I get asked that same old question: “What are you going to do?” I know people are only being kind, but they expect every graduate like me to have the rest of our lives planned out! (Or at least our college and degree plan). A lot of my friends have nice-sounding answers like “I’m going to Baylor to study communications and plan to be a journalist” or at least, “I’m working in the family business.” But I know most of those friends will probably change their plans if they’re anything like me. Lord, in a sense, I want to carry this weight instead of being apathetic. I don’t want to waste my life or make a wrong decision that would impact my ability to serve you. That’s probably my greatest fear: what if I choose the wrong option and miss out on your plan for me? I wish the New Testament had more detailed plans for grads like me, but I’m left with a lot of wondering … and prayer … and the need to follow the Spirit, which I know is better anyway. Despite my fear, I know it isn’t possible to make the wrong decision so long as I am seeking to faithfully serve you. Of course, your Word does give some specific directions to women. I know in Titus 2 you want me to develop a heart for the home, to recognize that I can start loving my future husband and children right now in the way that I learn to faithfully serve my own family. Help me use these years after high school to nurture a love for children and to fight the lie that serving at home doesn’t count as ministry. Whether you call me to go to college or work or ministry at church or the countless other options, may I never be ashamed of the role you have given me as a woman. I’m also reminded that the season before I’m married, if that’s God’s will, is a unique time of being able to be “anxious about the things of the Lord” to “be holy in both body and spirit.” You’ve given me more energy and undistracted time to serve you than I may ever have again in my life. Lord, help me not to waste this season but give my all to serve you. Lord, I pray you would help me nurture a heart for women. Whether I’m married or single, one of my primary callings as a woman is to encourage and be encouraged by women (Titus 2:2). I’m encouraged to know I have a place in the Great Commission calling to teach all that Christ has commanded. My role as a woman in that calling is crucial because some of those commands are specific to women and require women’s discipleship! Help me love the younger girls in my life, as well as my siblings, and seek to live in a way that points them to Christ. I’m also thankful for my parents and other godly older women in my life who can help direct me. I pray you’d give me the humility and courage to approach them, ask questions, and glean from their wisdom. Give them the willingness to invest in my life and confirm the giftings and calling you are giving to me. I’m so often blind to my own weaknesses and even strengths; help me lean into my parents and mentors to gain wisdom. Lord, wherever you call me, whatever the challenges or joys, disappointments or blessings, I want to be able to pray what Moses prayed: “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight …And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Ex. 33:12-15). Lord, you have promised that your presence will be with me. My desire is simply that, wherever you take me, whatever work or school or location you call me, you would go with me. I hold to your promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). Amen. Some resources for high schoolers/grads:
This blog post originally appears on Julianna's blog Whole Hearted. You can find the original post here. (Reposted with permission.) I'd love to hear from you! What's one way you can apply Julianna's blog post on graduating in your life? What's something you're praying to God about in your transitioning stages of life? Tell me in the comments below!
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