Anticipating Change

**A reformatted and reedited article I wrote**
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Transitions are always difficult; primarily because most of the time they are mandatory. In addition to the lack of choice we have when dealing with a transitional time, there is also a large amount of uncertainty.  More so than usual.

Transitions always bring with them questions about what life will be like on the other side of this change.  And whether or not we can even make it after that change.

And perhaps the questions we face that we are most invested in are these: Will I be happy in this new place or this next season of life? Will I be content? Will I be fulfilled? Will the things I’m doing be life-giving?
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Some might be in the midst of one such life transition, but one large population (of which I am apart) has one coming right around the corner; right around the month of May.

Graduation.
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We will be leaving our institutions, and most will probably be leaving their current locations altogether. So much of what has become familiar and comfortable over the past four or so years will be completely gone.

A season of life that most people in the world never experience, and that those who do almost never experience more than once, is over.
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Even short breaks probably give some students, regardless of class standing, a taste of how odd transitions can be. They leave college and go home or they go visit someone/someplace we wouldn’t otherwise see and noticeably feel the difference of a life rhythm that exists in the college academic machine versus just about everywhere else. Obligations and priorities are vastly different during normal school times and during breaks, and sometimes I imagine if that break were permanent (which is essentially how it will be after graduation) what I would do with all that free time and freedom.

And that is a kind of exhilarating and exciting question! Until, that is, you factor in all the new responsibilities that come with that transition.  The school loans, the rent, the groceries, and all the additional expenses that I'll be supplying for myself.

Then the question isn’t exhilarating.  It’s just stressful.
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And that may be where some of the apprehension of moving on really comes in. All transitions have us leaving something we know and have a good handle on into something less predictable.  We know what it looks like to get food, have a place to live, drive a car, and handle finances (at least to an extent) while being in college.  We've been doing it for almost four years.

But not only will we have to figure out how to juggle taking care of those things after the institution no longer does most of it for us, but we'll have to do it in a completely different social setting. I won’t live on a floor with some of my closest friends with the rest of the people I care about most only a couple hundred yards away in a different building. I will live somewhere very different from that, even if it is still in Canton.

A lot of the people I am around now will be in a lot of different places. And most of those places will probably be far away form me and each other.
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As sad as it may be to leave or as uncomfortable as it might be to go, I can’t help but suggest that perhaps the most appropriate response to the whole experience is thankfulness. Thankful for the things we have been able to experience. Thankful for the time of our lives where we became (with or without our institutions) more of who we will be for the rest of our lives. Thankful for the relationships, thankful for the memories, thankful for the knowledge, and thankful for the ability to learn so much.  Whether it is by seeing things done well or seeing them done poorly.
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There is an aspect of trust that I think is appropriate for entering transitions, even with them being so riddled with uncertainty.

We can trust that we valuable and worth being taken care of.  That those needs we have will be met.
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One of the more interesting things to me in the Lord's prayer is that Jesus encourages us only to ask for our daily bread when it comes meeting our provisions. The rest of our desires and preferences are peripheral compared to having this world resemble how God would have it. His will before ours, right? 
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And if that is the case, regardless of all the anxieties, sadness, or uncertainty that follows us as some of us move into a different season of life, we can trust that if we pursue that with our lives, we will be taken care of. Not that it won’t be hard or maybe even uncomfortable, but we will know that we are doing what we were made to do.

And that is what will be most fulfilling.
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Peace.