Lauren Sparks

The Sparks Notes

First Friday Prayers: Words for the Graduates

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Words for the graduatesHere we are in May.  Graduations for high school seniors, college students, pre-schoolers and kindergartners lurk just around the corner.  I volunteered to help plan the baccalaureate service for my daughter’s class.  If you aren’t familiar with the baccalaureate tradition, it is a religious service – often interfaith – held before commencement with a sermon featuring farewell words for the graduates.  In our case, it is student and parent led and held off campus.

 

Wanting to make sure my girl got to experience this sweet custom, I met with a group of other moms and discussed speakers, worship songs and scripture readings.  Colossians 1:9-12 was bandied about as a great passage for these kids entering a new phase of life.  And now I can’t stop praying it for my girl.

 

For this reason we also, since the day we heard about it, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the [a]knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, [b]to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and [c]increasing in the [d]knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according to [e]His glorious might, [f]for the attaining of all perseverance and [g]patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us [h]to share in the inheritance of the [i]saints in light. NASB

 

I also prayed this passage repeatedly for my now grown bonus son during his teenaged years.  There is so much here.  We could pray a different piece of this passage every day of the week for our loved ones.  But for our First Friday Prayer purposes, I’ll condense my prayer to these words for the graduates:

Replace the pronouns with the appropriate ones for the person (or yourself) that you are praying for.  Non-graduates included.  This passage is great to pray year-round.  And I’m praying for you in this.  Don’t forget to share on social media or with a friend who could benefit.  It would mean so much to me.  And if you don’t want to miss a Praying God’s Word Wednesday, subscribe over on the right hand side of this page.

Lauren

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

I enjoyed reading Beth Willis Miller’s thoughts on Psalm 23.  The passage is so familiar but her post proves how living and active God’s Word is.  Always learning something new.

 

The Link Up

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MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
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Grad, Prom and all the Feelings

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She’s a senior.  My daughter Shelby IS    A   SENIOR.  As the end of the school year races to a close, I’m trying to stay in my feelings.  My temptation is to stuff them down and barrel through this season, but I know this approach will only leave me with bigger, pent-up, frustrated feelings down the road.  So better for me to be open to the emotions as they come:  joy, sadness, pain, loss, frustration and happiness.  I vacillate between them all.  And probably a few I haven’t identified yet.

 

She’s a senior.  But for us, not much will change after graduation.  I was asked by the school to fill out this form for the awards ceremony:

 

These are just 3 of several questions that didn’t offer an answer remotely relating to my girl.  No where to even mark “not applicable”.  I closed the form in frustration.  Uncompleted.  Unsubmitted.  We won’t be going to the awards ceremony.  There is nothing there for us.  After our summer break, Shelby will go right back to high school to the transition program.  And while I am so very thankful for this option for her, it would be dishonest to say that I don’t grieve a “normal” future for her.  She will never go off to college, live on her own, marry or have children.  As we watch others prepare for these milestones, and as we anticipate our younger daughter doing the same in just a few years, grief comes anew.  Instead of questionnaires for awards ceremonies, I’m filling out forms like this:

so that we can have a current and accurate IQ test for Shelby as we go to court to be appointed her legal guardians at age 18.

While all of this future talk can be a little sad and a little sobering, there are still lots of senior activities to look forward to.  Like this:

 

 

Shelby got to go to prom.  Complete with friends, a corsage and a limo!  I am so very grateful to the Best Buddies organization and an especially sweet and loving group of kids who have a heart for the differently abled.  I believe I scared a poor 17 year old when I hugged her and shed way to many tears on her formal attire to thank her for including my girl.

 

On Monday, Shelby gets to do an elementary walk.  This tradition takes the seniors back to their first school in graduation gowns to walk the halls and see all their old teachers.  She gets to participate in Baccalaureate – a religious service for the graduates (having already been presented in our own church on Senior Recognition Sunday).  On the the last day of school, Chuck and I will get to join other parents and friends lining the halls of the high school to Clap Out the seniors as they exit the building for the last time.  Then she will help round out the Best Buddies team for field day!  And finally she will get to walk across the stage with the help of her teacher and favorite paraprofessional to receive her diploma with her classmates.  So much she does get to do.  So much fun!

 

So although I am allowing myself to feel whatever comes, today I feel grateful.  Today I am choosing to celebrate the “lasts” with this sweet baby – even if there are no exciting “firsts” to follow.  Today, I am hugging my daughter close and telling her how proud I am that she is made in the image of our incredible God.  And today, I thank Him for allowing me to mother such an incredible gift.  Today I praise God because Shelby is “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  (Psalm 139:14)

CONGRATULATIONS TO SHELBY AND THE CLASS OF 2018

 

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