GRADUATION!

Last night my dear senior graduated from high school! I was so proud of him, and so thankful to God. I've been so stressed out in the past couple of days, and if I've been stressed I'm sure he must have been going crazy! But it went SO well, and was SUCH a beautiful and worshipful evening. HURRAH!

One reason I was under a lot of pressure was that I was helping him with his graduation speech. Gulp. He refused to let his parents read it (and were they ever blessed when they actually heard it last night!), so the responsibility was mine and mine alone. I did read it out loud to Melissa, though, to get some further input. (As I was reading aloud the line "Now I close the door on my past high school experience" I put my head down on the counter and wailed aloud. I'm going to miss him SO MUCH!) And she had excellent input which I rapidly e-mailed off to my senior. The dear boy had left the writing of his speech for the day before graduation, so things were a little tight:)

I went over to his house a couple hours before the ceremony to put the finishing touches on it, and LO, it was beautiful. He'd done a REALLY good job. Melissa and I had tweaked, but he had done the bulk of the work. Yay for him!

Dad, Mom, Gretchen and KJ all came down for the graduation and I was so happy to have them witness such a big moment in my life and in the life of the school. And then, after the ceremony, they mingled and mingled with all my school people and I shot picture after picture. "Oh my goodness, Dad's talking to a board member!" click click click. It was great fun:) I loved being able to introduce people I've talked about over and over. They really enjoyed it, and they were so blessed by the wonderful ceremony.

As I was driving back home, and they were heading back to NH, I called them and KJ put me on speakerphone and we "debriefed" for a wicked long time. It was such a good time! "What did you talk about with ..." "So and so said this..." "I loved the part when..." "Oh you're right, that student is adorable!" Etc. FUN TIMES!

But most of all I am full of gratitude for God not only for an amazing graduation ceremony, but also for his faithfulness in the past 13 years as He crafted the school and led it along step by step. This was the first ever graduation in the history of the school, you see. They've been adding grades little by little as they went along. It was often a hard journey, but last night saw one of the biggest evidences of fruit to date. May my senior be the first of many!