Encouragement for Moms During Graduation Season

STEPHANIE FORMENTI | CONTRIBUTOR Graduation invitations. Yearbooks. Senior photos. Open houses. All signs point to graduation season—a busy and joyful time. And while motherhood is an emotional endeavor all the time, for many moms, graduation ceremonies feel like a sacred threshold where the intensity of pride and joy walk hand in hand with letting go and releasing control. In the time it takes for your student to walk across the stage, a barrage of emotions rush in: joy, relief, pride, nostalgia, and a whole new set of worries, fears, and anxieties. As a mom, you’ve watched your child grow, struggle, stretch, succeed, fail, and begin to learn responsibility. You’ve prayed over, cheered for, cried with, rejoiced with, and, at times, worried for your son or daughter. And now, the next chapter of life awaits. How can you walk faithfully through graduation season? Philippians 1:3-11 provides a beautiful guide for all you are experiencing. Much like our desire as parents, Paul writes to his spiritual children to encourage them in their faith and toward maturity and perseverance. This passage presents a helpful movement for us as moms: Give thanks. Entrust. Keep praying. Give Thanks Philippians 1:3: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you…” Throughout Scripture, God regularly invited His people to pause and remember. Sometimes it involved a sacrifice, a song, or a small tower of stones. These physical elements were meant to invite reflection on and recollection of the faithfulness, power, love, and mercy of God. The invitation to remember is an invitation to reorient our hearts toward what we know to be true about God and to let those truths change us from the inside out. Remembering is a powerful first step toward gratitude and trust...

Encouragement for Moms During Graduation Season2025-05-05T18:43:27+00:00

Graduation: The Right Time for Ambivalence

CHRISTINE GORDON | CONTRIBUTOR I remember the first time I felt the terrible grief in my chest. I was sitting on the black couch in my living room where I always sit, reading an email about move-in dates for fall 2023 at Western Kentucky University. My husband and I discussed possible dates while my oldest, still just 17, waited for the verdict. A minute later, the date had been chosen. I entered “Elliot Move in” to Tuesday, August 15 at 1:40 on our shared family Google calendar. Then I started to sob.  A Mixture of Feelings Seventeen years felt like a very long time right up until I had an end date. Suddenly, all of the realizations began to come to mind: I would no longer hear his Sonic Bomb alarm clock along with the vibrating extension under his pillow that woke him up and made me laugh out loud every morning. There would be no more calls from a rushed boy between school and work asking me to “pretty please make me a quick grilled cheese.” I wouldn’t hear his voice yelling with his dad as they watched Tottenham Hotspur games (Premier League soccer) together in the living room. He was moving 289 miles away, to another state, where I knew no one. Neither did he.  Of course this had always been the goal. My job, like any mom, for the first part of his life had been to get him ready to make it in the world apart from me. And in many ways, through a miracle of God’s kindness and a whole lot of help, we had accomplished that goal. But all the practical plans faded as I worried through the days and nights. Would he ever make friends? Could he handle the load? Would God take care of my baby when I couldn’t?  These were my thoughts and feelings as I walked into the school gym for my oldest son’s high school graduation. But I also felt a surge of pride, joy, relief, happiness, and gratitude. I was thrilled Elliot had made it so far, and thankful for his work and perseverance. My heart was an absolute mixture of so many conflicting and different emotions. Graduation, I came to understand, can be a time of ambivalence. Whether your child is moving from the simple days of elementary to the complicated years of middle school, from a vocational school to their first professional job, or through any other graduation, we as moms are bound to feel a ball of emotions that a friend of mine appropriately calls “mixy.”  A graduation is a pivot, a landmark, and a rite of passage. It signifies change, which always involves loss. Graduations are a very good thing, and a very “mixy” thing. For moms, they often bring up an emotion that cannot be avoided in this unpredictable world: fear...

Graduation: The Right Time for Ambivalence2024-04-19T14:40:53+00:00

On Commencement

STEPHANIE HUBACH|CONTRIBUTOR When my sons were little, they loved to watch the Walt Disney Davy Crockett movies. In one of their favorite scenes,  Davy Crockett and the local bully—Bigfoot Mason—have a disagreement that leads to a fist fight. The drama opens with each of them spitting on their open palms (remember—I have boys!), clenching their fists, and then cautiously circling around the room—never taking their eyes off each other, declaring “Rough and tumble! No holds barred!” Whenever I’d hear little voices loudly announce, “Rough and tumble!” in our house, I knew that some faux fighting was about to commence. When Graduation Signifies the Beginning Just like a Davy Crockett vs. Bigfoot Mason fist fight, academic commencement ceremonies are often preceded with an announcement. Maybe your family is in the midst of sending out graduation announcements right now—letting the world know that your son or daughter is about to set off on new endeavors. Whoever named graduation ceremonies a “commencement” had to be an optimist, as the word means “beginnings.” It sets our sights on the horizon—what is to come, all that is unknown (in the best and most adventuresome way), and all that might be. The very concept of commencement is brimming with opportunities. When Graduation Signifies the End If you are a parent of a graduate, however, your feelings are likely more muddled than pure opportunistic optimism. For the opening of a new time is also, inevitably, the closing of another. It is an ending—a time of “lasts.” Senior year—in high school or college—is a year of “we will not pass this way again.” The last band concert. The last play. The last football game. The last prom...

On Commencement2023-08-15T13:34:46+00:00

Encouragement and Prayers for the Graduates in Your Life

For many of our youngsters this graduation season, masks and sanitizer are replacing caps and gowns; e-certificates will arrive online instead of sheepskin diplomas. This cohort of youth make up the “coronials,” who are stepping forth into a future that seems even more uncertain than in other years. How to walk with them as they pass this unique milestone? Here are some suggestions, with prayers to offer on behalf of our children, nieces and nephews, students or others who are graduating from high school or college. 1. Honor their work, not their honors. Without the trappings of prom, commencement, and senior hoopla, some kids will feel deprived. Some were preparing for final performances, tournaments, recitals, capstone projects, or internships that have evaporated. Maybe there will be a belated official celebration rather than one in May, but it probably won’t feel like what was once anticipated. They may be questioning the relevance of their achievements to this new landscape.  Commend them on the discipline and skills they developed, which in God’s timing will benefit them beyond the short-term goal they were focused on. Studies have shown that praise is more encouraging when it is accompanied by a touch, and when it is specific—so (if you are in their household), give them a pat on the back for the laborious research they did on their term paper, or how they didn’t give up on basketball in sophomore year. That will be more effective than generalities like, “You always do whatever you set your mind to,” or “You’re so smart; you’ll be fine.” Of course, a special home-centered celebration may be more important than in other years. Solicit e-congratulations from relatives, your pastor, even your mayor and Congress member. Or how about decorating the family car with congratulatory washable graffiti, or making a scrapbook of school memorabilia? Maybe planting a tree in honor of the graduate would be meaningful for him or her. Lord of all times and seasons, please establish the works of these youngsters’ hands. Use this unexpected time to bring forth more creativity and resilience in their character. Holy Spirit, you so often bring joy and unity: help me to honor our graduates in memorable ways....

Encouragement and Prayers for the Graduates in Your Life2022-05-05T00:47:35+00:00
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