The A-maze-ing Life

“The deeper the darkness… the greater we’ll value the light when it returns.”

-Cecil Murphey, Seeking God’s Hidden Face

As I walked around campus a few days ago, I was overjoyed as I saw graduates with their caps and gowns. It brought me right back to my own college graduation last May. I felt the overwhelming joy again, knowing that I graduated at the top of my class. I DID IT!,  I thought to myself last year. I made it!

Graduation is always a special time because school is not easy. Neither is life. When I graduated, I became the first person in my family to graduate. I graduated with honors. I received numerous awards and graduated in the Honors Program.

College for me was not easy. I was hospitalized four times throughout my four and a half years in college (including a ten month medical leave after a serious suicide attempt). But I made it through, with the support and encouragement of many people. It has always been easier for me to focus on integrals and derivatives (yes, I'm an engineer) than focusing on the fact that my brother was in and out of hospitals or that my father was sending me harassing emails. School was my escape and I have always been good at it. It’s where I found my success. It's where I found my key to the freedom I always desired. The key to break the cycle of drug and alcohol abuse in my family.

The reason I’m talking about all of this is that I want to focus on the joy that I felt at graduation. When we go through difficult times in this life, when things look dark, the brighter the joy becomes that we feel when we overcome those difficulties. My joy during my graduation was hard to contain. When we spend a lot of time in the darkness, in those deep, dark times in our lives, the light of God that shines in our darkness becomes much brighter.

“In the waiting God had been quietly, secretly shaping and changing me. I was already being molded, remolded, and remade by the paths through which the Spirit led me.”

-Cecil Murphey, Seeking God’s Hidden Face

I do not know where God is going to lead me. I still am in kind of a waiting period because I am waiting to figure out my financial aid situation in order to complete my Master’s. I am continually praying to God to show me what He wants me to do and where He wants me to go once I hopefully graduate next May.

This made me think of an activity that my reverend made us do in youth group once. There was a mat on the floor with a maze. We had little toy cars that went all through the maze. We are those little toy cars. All we can see is our past and our present but our future remains largely a mystery. But from up above, we see the whole picture. We see the beginning from the end. And that is what God sees. God looks down on our maze and sees an intricately designed masterpiece, with all of its twists and turns adding up to a life worth living. God gives meaning and purpose to our lives, if we let Him guide us.

We may not know what God is doing in our lives or where we are going to go next, but we have faith that God will carry us through and that He has a beautiful plan set up for us. When I get nervous about the future, I remind myself of all that God has brought me through. He has used everything in my past to shape me and mold me into who He wants me to be. I thank Him for the challenging times because I would not be who I am if I had not had to go through them.