Tag: graduation

Pure Joy!

~ Barbara ~ 1 Comment

Where do you see the most smiles?  At baby showers? Birthday parties? Weddings? Many celebrations are joy-filled, with participants wearing wide grins. But a few days ago, we attended our grandson Ty’s graduation from Liberty University, and I do believe the big smiles on the graduates’ faces topped those at any other type of celebration. They were contagious; everyone was smiling!

The significance of a graduation is multifaceted. The accomplishment of passing tests and writing papers is combined with a student’s first foray from home. Now they turn their tassels and toss their hats in triumph, anticipating a future that will make use of their achievements. No wonder smiles beam from every face.

If you know me at all, you can anticipate where I’m going with this.

I envision the day our smiles will exceed those of the class of 2026. We too will be robed, not in throw-away gowns but in righteousness. We will have made it, written our stories, passed the tests, and graduated with honors.

We will hear, “Well done.” We will toss our crowns before our Father. Our “tassels” will turn from the earthly war we waged to the heavenly victory we face.

Full, complete, unmarred joy will be ours. Pure joy!

“Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.”
Matthew 5:12

Graduation: Moving Up

~ Barbara ~ 4 Comments

We just returned from Tennessee for our grandson’s high school graduation. I was surprisingly stirred on several levels.

Graduation, from a school (or a feat of any kind), speaks of leaving the past and moving forward to something more, something better. The satisfaction of accomplishment collides with expectation and hope. I find it all quite emotional, beginning with the processional.

“Pomp and Circumstance” always moves me, and I must not be alone because it’s been played at graduations since 1905. The music is celebratory and triumphant. Like every grandparent in the arena, my eyes sought only one graduate in the processional.

The students’ addresses in Tennessee, 2025, echoed other graduation speeches I’ve heard, sprinkled with teen emotion. When they speak of the challenges they’ve survived, the lows and hard times, I kind of cringe. They have no idea! I don’t downplay the angst of the teen years, but I’m well aware that the hardships they’ll likely face as adults will be far heavier. But I digress, back to the second-best part of the graduation—the tassels!

I love the move of the tassel from the right to the left. I can’t even describe why. I just know it touches me. And then the tossing of the hats—the pure, uninhibited joy of it!

When I reflected on the ceremony and the emotion of it, I thought about the graduation in my future.

  • I thought about triumphant music accompanying Christ’s return.
  • I savored the realization that I was leaving behind all hardship and pain.
  • I imagined moving a metaphorical tassel to indicate absolute separation from my old life and entrance to my new life.
  • I saw hosts of “graduates” throwing down their crowns before the Lord of Lords.

The celebration of any graduation—high school, college, or beyond—is a mild foretaste of the joy that awaits us. (Even as I wrote this post, I couldn’t help smiling.)

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise… to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 
Therefore encourage one another with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18

Image by Gillian Callison from Pixabay