Update...

"Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator

of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with

wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

(Isaiah 40:28-31)

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind complete with much excitement and "busy-ness"! I have now been a college graduate for a total of thirteen days...woohoo!! Let me recap that day...

My Aunt Carolyn from Iowa arrived early Wednesday afternoon and we spent the day visiting and getting caught up on scrapbooking my senior year.

My Grandparents finally arrived safely from Texas after a flight cancellation and several delays! It was great to be able to spend a couple of days with the both of them...

I awoke Thursday morning to blue skies, birds chirping, and breezy balmy weather; it was the perfect start to a perfect day! Dress rehearsal began at 9:00 and all was well until the crossing of the tassels, or to be more exact when Pastor Voegtlin called my name...I was walking up the stairs to the platform, very slowly and precise since my dad was sitting at the top with the camera. As I approached him I noticed he was playing around with the camera rather than getting a shot of me! In the midst of trying to get my dad's attention while walking up the stairs, something went wrong, horribly terribly wrong. I managed to miss a step and ended up sprawled face down on the flight of stairs. I wished I could just blend right into the carpet, but I knew I couldn't lie there forever. I managed to get my own applause and quite a lot of teasing. I was just glad that I got my embarrassment done and over with at rehearsal rather than at the real thing!

When 7:00pm came my stomach was full of butterflies and my heart full of excitement. As I sat amongst my other classmates I couldn't help but reminisce back to my freshman year when I sat with the same young people at our first day of college orientation. I remember feeling the same way, nervous yet so very excited. My first year of college seemed to be such a piece of cake and when my sophomore year came I pretty much had the rest of my life all figured out. I knew who I was going to marry, where I was going to live, and what I would do following graduation. But, come junior year I realized that in the midst of all my planning I had failed to consult God. A verse that came to mean a lot to me during this time was Isaiah 55:3-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." The next year I really struggled with trusting God and taking my hands of my life and putting it back in the Lord's hands where it belonged. When I did this I realized that God's ways truly are higher than mine and that God's plan for my life is going to be greater than anything I ever could have concocted up in my little head. My four years of college went all to quickly, I made friends and lost some, I learned a lot from my teachers but I feel I learned even more out of the class environment. As I sat awaiting my name I thought of all the tests, projects, compositions, and papers I had prepared...now it was all over. My life was not how I had planned it out but I knew that God was in control of it. My graduation commencement is now over and I am an official graduate, have I arrived? I think not...I am far from it, I know. But one thing is certain, although I have no clue what my future holds I believe that He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that I ask or think.