this past year hasn’t quite been what I thought it would look like. 

it’s been full of more blessings than I expected, yes, but it’s also been full of some disappointments that I didn’t think were going to show up in my life.

I left a group of girls in Washington who I thought I would graduate with—and then moved to North Carolina and found myself to be the only senior girl of 2027 in my small group.

my senior year won’t exactly be what I thought it would.

a year ago, I would have pictured celebrating with my fellow graduates of 2027—doing senior things with all my close friends.

now those close friends don’t seem so close to each other. I guess that’s what happens when you GrowUp™. But I’m not living in WA anymore, so I guess some peoples’ response would be, “Whatever.”

but I don’t want to be “whatever” about growing up, or moving on. I want to be staying close with the people I knew in my freshman year—but that isn’t possible for a few of us graduates of 2027.

instead, God has blessed me with graduated friends. my best friend just started college. the people I hangout with are nineteen at youngest, twenty-four on average. if their schedules aren’t too crazy, I’m getting weekly lunches with thirty-year-old or fifty-year-old women who want to support my goals for my future. 

but there will be a part of me that desires the camaraderie of celebrating our last year of high school—together. 

I’m learning that neither one is better than the other. if anything, my graduated young adult friends and mentors can teach me more things about the wild thing we call TheFuture™ than the teens who don’t know what it’s like to have to meet new people in order to not be alone. 

I love my adult friends. I have so much fun with them; we laugh together at 1am, we cry and mourn what we’ve lost, we have serious conversations around the fire in the snowy winter. 

at this stage of life, this is the true fellowship I need in order to challenge and grow my faith, relationships, and dreams. 

I want to be challenged, although a large part of me wishes I could have the easy way out. 

but the easy way wouldn’t grow me—I would be stuck as the same little girl who says, “I don’t want to go in there alone.”

that little girl is gone now. she has turned into a young woman who stands up in front of people and encourages them to keep on in their faith. she has become a writer who has written 460+ blog posts—and still has things to say about the goodness of God. 

she always will have things to say about Him. 

if, in a year, I look back on this brand new senior, I hope that she hasn’t stopped doing just what she is doing now. I hope she is doing it even more. I hope she steps out of her comfort zone. I hope she does things that make her say, “I hate the idea of this because it’s scary.” 

I hope she is proud of herself and the girl she was in elementary school, middle school, and high school. 

there are a lot of people who I wish knew this girl’s story. 

she used to be comfortable hanging out in a hospital room—now even the hallways scare her more than they did when she was nine.

she used to cry at the idea of moving from her friends—now she realizes it’s been what she needed to discover who she was.

she used to hope to never be known by tons of people—now she is scared to be forgotten.

she would have been terrified to share a single real, true thought or emotion with an adult—now she shares her deepest thoughts with strangers, adults, peers, and younger girls.

this little girl isn’t missing out. if anything, she’s received more experience by age seventeen than she could have prayed for.

the Lord really does know what our truest needs are.

I am not scared of the future. I have heard more confirmation than I have ever needed. I am simply scared that the nostalgia and jealousy in my heart will poison my memories so that everything is “why couldn’t i ___?” instead of “thank God i ___.”

I do not want to look back and think, “If only I’d stopped looking at them and looked at God and what He’d given me.”

I do not want my senior mantra to be, “why do they get these things? They take all they have for granted. They have no idea.”

ha! really, I am the one taking things for granted. 

how silly, when put in perspective, these senior things seem.

I wish I had a friend to do senior jeans with…

I have clothes.

I wish I had a group of people to do a senior sunrise with…

I have friends I can watch the sunrise with anytime, any day. 

I wish I had a graduation ceremony…

I have a church that celebrates me and my achievements. 

i am grateful to have so many groups of people around the country who will forever support me, walk with me on my faith journey, and encourage me in the valleys.

I hope that my senior year will not be one solely made of wishful thinking and dreary nostalgia.

I hope to make it all about the Lord, the things He’s done in my life, and the things He will be doing in my life. I want to see His hand in everything around me.

and He is where I shall find true contentment and camaraderie.