Continuing to Become

 

As I walked the streets of my neighborhood this week, I was thinking of how quickly the end of the school year was approaching. My mind turned to those in my congregation who will graduate high school over the next few weeks. Several of these young people will be leading our worship services this coming Sunday. It is always a great day in the life of our community.

I suppose that is why these unopened Magnolia blooms caught my eye. The many Magnolias in our neighborhood catch my attention each year, but only after the large white flowers open and their fragrance has filled the air. But these seemed to me a wonderful image of becoming. The buds are there, they are on the verge of opening, but they are still becoming. It is almost graduation day for the Magnolias.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 that, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Life is a journey of becoming who we are created to be. We move from birth to childhood to youth to young adult, all within the constant, active love of God.

As our graduates mark this important milestone in their becoming, they remind us all that the journey does not end at young adulthood. We can continue to become the people God calls us to be across all the ages and stages of life. We never graduate from becoming. We just continue to become. That is what makes life an adventure.

Peace.