Well just like that my husband and I blinked and our oldest daughter, Paige, has grown up and now graduated high school.
My, my time flies!!
We are soooooo proud of this girl’s accomplishments! She worked her tail off, overcame learning challenges with Irlen’s Syndrome (which is basically an allergy/sensitivity to artificial light) and graduated with honors!! Just wow!!!
So of course we celebrated her with a fun reception at our house after a bittersweet graduation ceremony.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am a procrastinator through and through.
Friday, the day of graduation, I decided to put a photo book together using the Walmart Photo website. I sifted through hundreds of photos with the huge help of my youngest daughter and managed to create a photo book that highlighted each of the years of Paige’s life starting from her birth through graduation.
The photo platform that I was using was telling me that I would be able to pick up the finished product in store that day. And I actually believed it because I’ve made my grandma a photo book before and was able to pick it up the very same day. I ended up spending from 9:30 in the morning until 4:45 in the afternoon on this photo book (non-stop), rushing to finish it in time to have it displayed at the reception the next day, only to find out that it actually won’t be to us until May 22nd!! Hilarious, right?! Oh-well we still had plenty of photo books and great memorabilia!
On the other hand I had collected food items, party supplies, etc. a few weeks ahead of time so that was good.
I had also enlisted the help of my best friend to prepare and serve food and drinks. Her and her daughter, plus my mother-in-law, brother and sister-in-law, mom, niece, and my daughter (McKenzie) were an incredible blessing!
We had settled on serving pancakes with toppings and had loads of butter, berry fruit mixture, peanut butter, Cool Whip and syrup for all of that. Fresh lemon and orange slices were added to pitchers of ice water, coffee was hot, and apple juice was chilled.
Everything came together just in time for guest to arrive to celebrate our young lady.
And overall It turned out great…even if I let it slip my mind to stock up on toilet paper, neglected to put napkins on the food serving table, left the Cool Whip in the freezer the whole time, and last but not least forgot that I should’ve provided a gluten free option because we have a daughter with Celiac Disease and I should know better! …No one ever mentioned the napkins, even though we had sticky syrup so I guess that takes the heat off me for that one!!
Y’all life is funny isn’t it?! We think we’re good and prepared for the next big thing until we’re simply not! Oftentimes we can pull it all together, regardless, and make a good thing happen even with a few hiccups along the way though!!
Isn’t that such a sweet reminder for life as a Christian?
We’re never going to be perfect this side of Heaven. We’re going to mess up. We’re going to forget this and that. We’re going to fall short of self-made expectations or the expectations others have for us. And we wear ourselves out thinking otherwise. But as long as we’ve accepted Jesus as Lord over our life, have repented of our sins and asked Him into our heart — we have the hope and promise of Heaven. Mess-ups or not along the way, Heaven is still our eternal prize.
Jesus flawlessly perfects everything and in light of Him we can do our best and simultaneously surrender all of our shortcomings upon Him. He is able and willing to carry the weight of our burdens, the sorrows of our today or tomorrow, the stress, the afflictions. All of the things.
Just like Paige’s reception definitely had its errors the end goal still happened. Our girl graduated to a new season of life despite any issues. Such so is life…the bumps will come but as long as we’re sincerely in relationship with Jesus, Heaven will still be in our future.
I’m not sure what you may be walking through right now, but if Jesus is your Savior trust and know that “this too shall pass” — we will all graduate into Heaven one day because of His amazing grace and oh what a glorious celebration that will be.
Sweet blessings, friends! Congratulations to the class of 2024 and a gentle squeeze for all you parents. Well done!
I can’t wait to see the work God will continue to do in Paige’s life for His glory!!