I’m thinking quite a bit about graduations this week. My niece just graduated from High School on Wednesday. Hard to believe the baby I held in my arms  before I left for my mission is going to be a freshman in college studying nursing. I guess it’s pretty obvious I’m proud of my niece. Her graduation has brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings for me this last week. Not only about high school and college graduation but other life events as well.

I definitely got misty eyed hearing Pomp and Circumstance. Happy and thrilled for my niece but tinged with a little bit of sadness. I didn’t get to do the walk when I graduated from high school or when I got my bachelor’s degree and to some extent I really feel like I  missed out on something. I did have a friend of mine take some pictures for me in a cap and gown when I graduated from college. Sadly the cap and gown disappeared in the move somewhere between there and here. In reality the degree on the wall is probably enough.

For all of us there is another graduation that will take place sooner or later when we graduate from mortality and return to our Father in Heaven. For the ones left behind it’s sad and often heartbreaking. But at the same time, it’s wonderful. Some days trudging through daily life has less joy than others. There are feelings of loneliness and longing that seem like the need behind them can never be met.

It gets even harder when friends and family ask questions that while there is really no malice behind the asking, there is a definite sting. Combining that with financial struggles which make a longed for trip north an impossibility and other physical difficulties it can be hard to maintain faith. Yet at the same time, this strength in adversity and enduring to the end is what we are all here for. I hope that I can endure to the end and when the day comes for me that I can be embraced by dear friends and loved ones who have already finished the journey and graduated as it were. They did it with tears and hardship, yet endured with faith to the end. I look to there example of courage and faith to bolster my own. As I’m thinking and writing about this, I am reminded of words that have given me a lot of encouragement:

O that each in the day of his coming may say,
“I have fought my way thru;
I have finished the work thou didst give me to do.”
O that each from his Lord may receive the glad word:
“Well and faithfully done; Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne;
Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne.”

So may it be when the time of graduation comes.

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