Senioritis

This was something I lived through myself. Twice. Once at Fairfield High School (remembering it like it was yesterday! esp Senior Skip Day!) and another time at Gordon College (remembering missing my last convocation to go to VA beach.... not knowing I was getting some award I'd never heard of!). Now, however, I get a different kind of senioritis every single year. It's the kind of sick, sad feeling I get when I realize all our SPACE seniors are leaving us. It's actually really depressing for me.

Don't get me wrong - I am more excited for them than they'll ever know. It keeps us kind of young listening to them plan the rest of their lives (foolishly thinking the next 4-5 years will determine that - muahahaha!), applying for college, going on Senior Week (wish we'd had that when I was a senior!) and making all their last prom/graduation party plans. Sometimes we even get invited, and I'm amazed that an 18 year old would actually think it's OK for us 30 somethings (almost 40 somethings!) to party with a bunch a seniors. They are brave!! So, I get their excitement, I thrive on their energy and I embrace their newfound feelings of freedom they are embarking upon.

However, I know from years past that we're going to miss them terribly. My girls are going to miss their favorite babysitters. T is going to lose his beloved interns. I'm going to miss hearing all their fun stories of admiration for my husband - LOL! They make me proud, so, just as their parents, I dread them leaving us. We conspire ways to manipulate them into coming back to us (yup, it's THAT bad!) and we dream about the things they will do for Christ when we launch them into the "real world" (yup, it's THAT good!). We realize the impact this generation will have on this planet and it's terrifying - but that's why we do what we do!

So, I'm settling in now to my newest season of senioritis. Fortunately, I'm not quite at the senior citizenitis yet! It really is about our seniors. I'd beg them all to stay if I thought they could actually better themselves around here, but I recognize that God gifted them to us for a very short time as part of a much bigger plan He has for them. Watching that unfold in all the amazing experiences our past seniors have embarked on is the only remedy for this illness. Hearing about their trips to Egypt with Intervarsity, or Turkey/Greece/Rome on a YWAM DTS, spending a month in Ghana on a medical missions trip, or just initiating a ministry on their college campus here at home.... I can see that even though we're planted here, our hearts are extended into the world by/with them. They make me so excited to start over with new seniors, new pebbles who will create those concentric waves of influence in their ponds of life. It heals a saddened soul.