True to Yourself

The day we've anticipated for years beyond high school has come: college graduation. It's not my time yet, that is coming in a few short months, faster than I am able to comprehend, probably. Yet, as I watched various friends pridefully march across that grand stage and collect the diploma they've worked so hard to earn, I couldn't help but think, they think their lives are just beginning but really they began long ago. People leave legacies without even realizing it. People in younger stages will look back on friendships they've formed with those who have graduated and moved on and remember them. There is no escape from who you are to people, it's those memories that will keep your spirit alive long after you depart.

It's strange to be on my side of things, watching loved ones pack up what they've collected over the years, kiss the freedom of college goodbye to find themselves completely cut off from parents, comforts of a college-aged town, and struggling to figure out, still, what they want to do with their lives. It's odd to hug them goodbye not knowing where they may end up or when we may cross paths again...if ever. It's bittersweet but I wish them all one common thing:

That you may always be true to yourselves. Don't try to be the hero or mask yourself with false identity. I hope your years of college taught you enough about life to realize that being yourself is the best thing you can be. I hope when you are hurt, you feel it deeply. When you mess up, you own it. When you've wronged another, you apologize. When you are fearful or full of doubt, you voice it. & when you feel joyous, it will come from the pit of your being, never to please those around you but because you are being exactly what you are: content. I wish many moments of contentment and pride.

"One light cannot go out if it lights 1,000 others." 
I heard that quote and thought that when we free ourselves to be transparent, broken, simply genuine, we free others to be so, as well. When we shine lights of Christ, our need for Him, because of our lack of perfection, we become more beautiful, contagiously. And when we accept ourselves as exactly what we are, others do too and it is beautiful.