oh my heart

I'm on duty. Cool summer air is coming through my window with the sound of Julie Kucks's voice. AEX Live, and I'm inside. I'm grieving.

Last night was the RA banquet, which was immensely emotional for me. I'm lucky I got to duck out early and play an acoustic gig with the Pillar of Salt guys at a catholic youth group, otherwise I would've fallen to pieces. I have just been processing a lot in the past 24 hours. I call it grieving, because I am. I am grieving what I am about to lose. I am grieving college.

Sitting in my flapper dress, chewing on candy cigarettes and listening to JSwank accurately describe the numerous sacrifices I have had to make as an RA, I kept wondering: did any of it eternally matter? Will anyone miss me?
Driving down empty roads last night, looking out at the stars and talking with Corey about the kingdom of God coming back to earth, I kept wondering: who am I becoming? What is to become of me?
Today, walking into the cafeteria, doing my rounds in MEP, chatting with Holly, watching the sun set, sitting here listening to familiar voices and familiar songs very far away, I keep wondering: why does this transition seem to cause me more pain than it does other seniors? What on earth am I going to do next?
Why does this not seem to bother anyone else?

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As I graduate, what do I have left to hold on to?
A handful of adequate papers and projects?
The list of girls I've been able to pour into?
A few curtain calls, radio shows, gigs and coffeehouses?
My transcript, textbooks and lecture notes?
Some photographs, some ticket stubs and some letters in a box?
A collection of phone numbers I may or may not ever call again?

Without the Lord, it's all just an empty three years. Without the Lord, I'm just an empty girl with empty hands and an empty life waiting to be filled with emptiness. But I have the Lord. And that's everything.

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The three short years were quicker than I ever could've imagined. And it is not my greatness I leave stamped behind. If I leave any trace, it's the shadow of God's spirit in me in the lives of the people I attempted to love. To me, that is everything. That's all I want to leave behind for the rest of my life.

I've put on some worship music to drown out the music from outside now. It's good to grieve, but not good to stay there. It's better to look up at God: the God of college, the God of broken hearts, the God of the past, present and future, the God of transitioning and of grieving, the God inside me right now. The God that takes emptiness and fills it with purpose. The God that redeems a broken woman grasping for the right words.

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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:31-32