GROWING SEEDS: "Dear Graduate"

Dear Graduate,

As you prepare to cross that long stage...6 feet apart....in front of your family and friends, eagerly closing one chapter and opening the next, there are a couple of things this old lady whose tassel was moved from the right to the left many years ago would like for you to know:

Be An Individual.  There is a reason you are alive.  This culture we live in makes it far too easy to look alike, act alike and believe alike.  Discover who YOU are.....and don't be afraid to be different.  That goofy graduation cap on your head is a ticket to life.  You can stand out and you can be the change you wish to see in the world.  Learn to fly solo......

Help Others.  We all have a calling in life.  And if there's one lesson I've learned over all others, it's that we are placed on this earth to help other people.  In the book The Original Human Dilemma (2004), supposedly in hell, they sit around a great pot, all hungry, because the spoons they hold are too long to bring the food to their mouths.  In heaven, people are sitting around the same pot with the same long spoons, but everyone is full. Why?  Because in heaven, everyone uses their long spoons to feed one another.

Place God as the Driver of Your Life.  Really hear this....NOTHING else matters if you don't have God as your Driver.  You are traveling down the Highway Of This World at a rapid speed.  GET OFF....NOW.  There are exit ramps along the way and they lead you to a narrow, difficult and rarely traveled path.  This path is unlike the highway that leads to certain death and an eternity in hell....the narrow path leads you HOME.  Yes....you will most likely arrive Home (Heaven) sore, scratched and tired from the bumps and hills along the way, but you will be ALIVE to see Home.

And be Happy.....just as God intended for you to be.

(I wrote my Dear Graduate letter back in 2017....when life and graduations looked much different.  Masks and social distancing would have been laughed at.  People fighting in the aisles of Walmart for toilet paper was unimaginable and the thought of not walking the stage for that piece of paper confirming your hard work was only in our nightmares.  But here we are...2020...and our 20/20 vision is only too clear on how our world has changed.  BUT, Graduate....tuck the words below into that parchment in your hand called a diploma and hang on...you’re in for a wonderful ride if you do!)
 
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” - Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)