To the Graduates of 2021

This past Tuesday there was another graduation at MacGregor Collegiate Institute. There were several students from our church that walked the stage. They are outstanding human beings, each of them, and I legitimately look forward to seeing what they get up to in this next stage of their lives.

In this post, I want to share some more words of biblical wisdom for grads. Biblical wisdom which I wish I had known when I was at that same point of my life that they now find themselves in. Last year I did something similar, and in many ways, this post is just an extension to that.

As Christians, we believe that human beings are hardwired for friendship. In the Bible story where we are given the baseline definition of what it means to be human - that is made in the Image of God - we see that we are not made in that Image alone. Only together, we read, are we made in the Image of God. You can see this in Genesis 1:26-31. Now there is a whole lot to unpack in that passage, but that we human beings have a need to be with other people, to have people in our lives who know who we are and care for us as we care for them in return; in short, to have friends, that I would argue is baked into that passage as well, and as such we should understand this need to be baked into us as well. That the need to make friends is a part of who we are as human beings, means this is true for you, just as it is for me, as it is for the people around you that you may have never even met before.

This doesn’t mean we all want to be best friends with everyone, but that we all need a few people, I suspect whether or not you are even a Christian, you would be on board with that being the truth.

So why is this an important bit of theology specifically for you grads to remember? In my life, I have found myself in a new place in which I knew next to no one on a number of occasions. It’s a difficult place to be in. It happened to me once when I moved to a different town in middle school and again at my graduation, as I looked forward to what I was going to do next in my life. Beyond just this, I can count another four or so instances when the same thing happened again. Each of these times, I can admit I was somewhat terrified of what was to come next as I headed off into the unknown. In at least a handful of these experiences, I was lucky enough to have a friend come with me or be waiting for me on the far side, but to leave those you have known behind as you set off into the next part of your life, that is a hard step to take.

So, grads, if you are just now beginning to feel a little anxious or even a little terrified at the idea of what comes next, know that is a completely normal feeling for you to be having. But, let me tell you a wonderful secret about that fear. It is a feeling also held by pretty much every other person in the same situation that you are now about to embark toward, as well. And if you combine this, with that bit of theology that we previously discussed, about how all people have baked into them the deep-seated need to have friends, you will find yourself holding a pretty wonderful truth. That no matter how alone you may feel as you arrive in a new place, if you go searching for friends, as others often do themselves, that initial loneliness is rarely ever the situation for long.

If you chose a path similar to mine, you may very well be heading out to schooling in a new place in the fall. There you will be surrounded by people you mostly don’t know, far away from the family and the friends you have made over the past few years. This is true. But what is also true is that this will also be the situation of next to everyone else you will be around as well. What that means is that from experience I can tell you everyone will be looking to make new friends themselves, just as you will be. Not new friends to replace the old ones, but new friends to be with during this new stage of your life. New friends who didn’t know who you were before, and as such are people you can learn to be this new you with. So, especially in your first semester, here is my suggestion for you. Choose to allot your social life just as much time as you would any other course. Make sure to reign it in if you find your grades are slipping or that you are burning through your spending money too quickly, but that first semester is when everyone will be looking for someone else, so that is the time to be on the lookout as well. I am still friends over a decade later with many of the people I got to know in my first semester of college, including my wife. Trust me when I say, as you are able - because Covid does complicate this - spend those early semesters meeting all the people you can, the rest of your life may very well thank you for it. Finding a local church to attend while your there I found helps in this process as well.

And for those of you who are not looking to go to college, who may be either entering the workforce right away, taking a gap year or doing some local training. This same truth holds for you as well. Soon a number of your friends from high school will find themselves scattered to the corners of the earth. Not all, but a fair number. And this will be hard to deal with when it happens. It always has been and always will be. But here is one of the absolute best parts about graduating high school. All those distinctions and walls that once existed to keep you separated and distinct from other people, you are soon going to find will fade away. Was there someone you wanted to get to know in school but you never did because you were from different groups? Well now, what’s stopping you? Soon you are going to find that things like this, like high school caste and grade, are suddenly not as important as they once were. Though it will be hard to see some of your old friends leave, you will find pretty readily that there are new ones to be had as well. What’s more, specifically for you MCI grads, soon you will find your sights will begin to shift, from “how do I need to act as a student” to “how do I live as a citizen in North Norfolk”. In that shift, I expect you will likely find, as I have, that you are surrounded by a town of people that will go to the ends of the earth for you if you are one of their own. It’s a special place you live in, graduates of MCI, and now that you have entered into this new stage of your life, you will get to see that in a way you likely never have before. So my advice to you is to make getting involved, either in church, in community organizations or anything else you come across, a priority in the same way you think of work. This is not to say that you need to spend the same amount of time volunteering as you do earning your living, but instead that it should be one of the priorities in the life decisions you make going forward. Do this, and I guarantee you it will pay dividends many times over.

Do you have any wisdom you would like to share with our graduates? Feel free to leave it in the comments below,