Planning a Graduation

 

“Dad,” Elise said seriously.  “I don’t want to graduate with boys!”

“I don’t think you have much choice, Elise,” I said.  “It’s an odd fact, but roughly half the earth’s population are boys.”

“It’s true,” Aly put in.  “Boys are weird, but some of them are nice.”

“Do you want Elliot to come to your graduation?”  I asked. 

“Elliot CAN NOT come to my graduation!”  Elise said firmly.  “He is a boy and worse than that, I don’t like him.  He can just stay home.”

“What about me?”  I asked.  “Can I come?”

Elise considered this a little longer than she did for her brother.  “No, you can’t come either,” she said at last.  “You’re my dad and you’re a boy too and I don’t want any boys at my graduation.”

It was such a weird conversation to be having because of course, Elise is six years old and coming down to the tail end of first grade.  She has eleven more years to grow and develop and get more accustomed to boys and even develop a better relationship with her older brother (if that is possible).  The idea of her planning her high school graduation now, just a month before the end of her first grade year is a bit silly.

Of course, she doesn’t think it is silly.  She sees it as important – she needs to set ground rules ahead of time so that everything goes off perfectly when the big day comes.

Paul told the Philippians, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6,7 NLT)

There are so many verses in the Bible about giving up worry and anxiety and trusting God with our future.  I suppose there are a lot of reasons for that, but chief among them is that most of us feel like our lives are uncontrolled chaos.  We have a deep desire to be in control and to order the things around us and somehow the people in our lives resist our attempts at ordering things.

The blessing is that God’s peace will guard our hearts and mind and give us calmness as we face the future – even if that future includes a graduation ceremony, 11 years from now, in which an unwanted brother and dad show up.