I just finished a 360

360. I'm not talking about the degrees of a circle. Quite the contrary, my reference to this three-digit number implies a mostly linear action--sitting straight, looking ahead at a professor and the whiteboard he/she stands before. Yes, 360 are the number of hours I spent in these last 17 weeks behind a desk in a college classroom. Five papers, six speeches. 40 philosophy vocabulary words, and 182 history flashcards later...I AM FINISHED with spring semester '09! 17 units are behind me!

After my last final this morning, I walked around my little community college campus and indulged in some silly sentiment. I almost felt sad. My mom once said that she experienced a certain gloominess when all three of us girls (I suppose that would mean me specifically since I am the youngest!) became potty-trained. No more diapers. No more rashes. No more baby wipe odors that clearly identified her as a mommy of little munchkins. Of course, Mom really was glad that her "diaper duty days” were over. Yet this milestone also meant that her little baby girls were growing up. They would never return to the diaper stage (at least for another 80-90 years! We’ll see). While I certainly felt no sadness at leaving the Huggies behind, today I did feel a twinge of dolefulness stemming from the fact that I will never go backward.

The General Education units I have whittled away at over that last 2 1/2 years only mean that I am closer to earning my bachelors degree. Only two more years to go! But don't "big girls" earn degrees? Don't adults graduate and get jobs? Naturally, there is much more to being a mature adult than graduating with a piece of paper from a college; however, I have been working, studying, and praying to be a woman with a heart after God for years and now I find myself in the very shoes of the first nd in the process of the second.

God is so very good. I don’t know what shape the future will take, but I know God is there!

Happy Summer!