Graduation Day!

Yeah, not mine...my cousin's, but it was just the perfect motivation and encouragement I needed to push forward in this academic process. At the ceremony, there were about five students who got the opportunity to walk across the stage and get hooded, signifying their completion of the requirements for their doctoral degrees; I definitely drifted off into the land of my imagination, just thinking about how great it will feel to accomplish this dream... Soon come!
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I'm approaching the end of my seven day communication fast, and it's definitely been a journey. While academic obligations made it so I had to amend the original intention to really take the time away from all the noise, I really feel like I had an opportunity to work on two critical relationships; the one between me and me, and me and God.

As I look back over my week, while it was REALLY hard to break routine from speaking with friends, family, and loved ones with whom I regularly speak, I really had to strip down to the bare minimum to truly realize that the greatest relationship in my life makes it so that I'm NEVER alone. I realized how much I can cut out the clutter of everyone else's opinions and confusion, and listen in to my most perfect source of clarity, comfort, and support.

I have to be honest, I was really in a place where I was feeling asphyxiated by fear. I wasn't functioning fully in any area of my life. When you get down to those types of lows, you have a choice of remaining there or finding your way out. I guess every once in a while that valley presents you with the opportunity to choose. Over this week, as I prepared to climb out of the valley, I began to put together some of the pieces of what I've been missing.

What I will share is this, I found that every day of this week I was in a different sort of classroom. My consistent lessons involved building my spiritual base through revisiting who God really is in my life. This curriculum was an intensive on faith and seeing the power of God in all things, even my trials.

Today, I actually did have a sort of graduation of my own. My culminating ceremony, however, didn't happen with me being hooded on a stage in front of a crowd of people at Constitution Hall, but actually happened while I sat in the last row of the Rankin Chapel Sunday service at Howard. From this seat, I gathered lessons that serendipitously helped me conclude this seven-day rite of passage.

Ultimately, I learned that I can bring back my smile; I don't have to smile about where I am, but I can smile about seeing myself beyond where I currently find myself. I can be thankful even when God doesn't change everything in my life; sometimes I can see my trials as complements from a God who trusts that I can be given any circumstance and will still bless the Creator in the midst of my troubles. I know that life's challenges can also be an opportunity to demonstrate perseverance; by faith I can rest assured that God will walk me all the way through these tough times to something good.

While my 7 days are ending, I know that the true test will begin tomorrow. How will I use what I've learned to face the days ahead? How much will I enact and manifest all of the wisdom and power God has shared with me from this point on?

My prayer is that the remainder of this journey will be able to capture how my newly charged spirit will change the trajectory of my life. I now truly know that I have choice in the matter, and I know that I will always have God in the equation.