Graduation

Graduation is in the air! We are receiving graduation announcements from family and friends and it always seems to be a time to reflect on my own graduation and other life transitions. Shockingly, for me at least, I have been a graduate from Layton High School for 20 years this week. There are parts my high school experience that feels like it happened just yesterday and I find myself eternally grateful for many of the wonderful friendships and experiences that have molded my heart, mind, and soul. Then there are other memories and experiences that seem like only a distant occurrence and hard to recall.

What is the difference between the two? My mind lands on the intensity of the emotions that surrounded the memory. Our minds are incredible instruments and can capture a moment in time that can be recalled for a lifetime and I can’t help but reflect on the times in my life when those special memories, with high emotions, have been recalled at a later time to help in another situation. Our minds and Heavenly Father work in amazing ways.

Just the other day I had a graduation of sorts as I finished my final round of chemotherapy! Much like I did in high school, college, and even my mission, I had been anticipating the end and excited to just be done, but unbelievably I had incredibly mixed emotions…not unlike my other transition points, but far more confusing…who has mixed emotions about finishing chemotherapy?

Luckily, I had about 7 hours to think about the confusion and high emotion and I think I have landed on an insight. As I looked around the room at the chairs, the inspirational words, heard the beeping of the chemo machine, and saw the sweet faces of loved ones, I realized that as yucky as the chemotherapy has been, it has become a ‘known’. There has been predictability in the chaos and I have known what to expect for the last sixteen weeks.

As I sat there thinking about the future, it became scarily apparently that at the end of my treatment that day, I was back in the realm of unknowns and my life would be thrown at the mercy of the next test, which by the way is the third MRI on Tuesday morning. I will let you know…

Though there is comfort in predictability, I have come to recognize that true peace comes at the end of a storm (Ether 12:6) when you land on the other side with new experiences and new insights! Heavenly Father loves us enough to let the storms come because he knows that we need them. It reminds me of Peter in the New Testament.

In Matthew chapter 14, Peter and the other disciples are caught in a storm and have been in the midst of the storm all night, valiantly keeping the boat workways with the wind and the storm (D&C 123:16) and it is the ‘fourth watch’. I can imagine that they were scared and tired and turning to the things that had brought them comfort in their lives, when Jesus appears and says, “BE OF GOOD CHEER; IT IS I; BE NOT AFRAID.” I don’t know the reaction of the other disciples, but Peter asked the Lord to bid him come unto him in the water (v.28), which he did and for a time Peter was walking on the water, “but when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matthew 14:30-31).

I know that my family and I are caught in the middle of the ‘cancer storm’. I even know that Christ, like he did with the disciples that night, “constrained” me to get into the ship (Matt 14:22) and just like the men on that ship that night, Christ will come in the “fourth watch”, not in the first or the third, but the fourth, so that we can develop in the areas that we need to. I hope and pray that I can be faithful enough to simply ask the Lord to bid me come. Because in the question is found the veracity that in the waters of the storm lay the unknown, and in the unknown lay the answers that will calm my hurting (scared) heart.

I love that for a time Peter was in fact walking on the water. I love that this faithful man was human and when he saw the reality of the wind and the storm he was afraid and began to sink. And I love that Christ immediately caught a hold of his hand and let him know a saving truth, “Oh thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

Christ mixes humility and grandeur; our humanness with His godliness. We will not make it through the storms of life by ourselves. We need Him! He is the only one that can reach out immediately and hold us and if we are able to do that, then we can indeed follow the Master and do what we were intended to do.

Our sweet nephews and a number of my Young Women will also be graduating. They will be hearing about the future that they can create, about the lives that they may impact, and the advances that will happen in the world that they live in, but what I know about them…about me…about all of us, is that it is about the decisions that we are making right NOW. As we are transitioning in this life, will we valiantly keep watch all the way to the end? That watch is NOW! It is happening minute by minute, and day by day. We must live in the here and now to experience humility and grandeur; humanness and godliness. And all of these things can be missed if we forget about NOW, so right now I am grateful to have graduated from Chemotherapy and with this insight, I am grateful to be back in the boat in the middle of the storm…For in Christ there is no need to doubt! 

 “BE OF GOOD CHEER; IT IS I; BE NOT AFRAID.”