A Charge to the Senior Class: "Holy Moments"

The countdown is on. There are only eight days left until graduation.  

By this time, we, the graduating seniors, have accumulated at least 128 credit hours, which translates to 1024 hours in the classroom. We have probably taken somewhere around 160 different tests, bought at least forty textbooks (and probably more like twice that many), and sat in chapel 480 times...assuming that every chapel skip was used every semester. In four years, we have been on Harding’s campus approximately 832 days, and now there are only eight more to go.  

With only eight days left until graduation, that means there are eight items left on my Harding bucket list. All semester long, I had been wishing for graduation to come as quickly as possible. But a few weeks ago, about a month before graduation, I suddenly wanted time to slow down, not speed up. So I made a bucket list, which is really less of a bucket list and more of a here's-all-my-favorite-things-at-Harding-that-I-want-to-do-one-last-time kind of list. Things like getting a milkshake at Frozen D with at least three (and maybe four or five) different flavors, getting a big round table in the cafeteria for brunch on Sunday after church, taking a Saturday trip to Heber Springs to cliff jump, having a picnic and playing Frisbee on the front lawn, and taking an 11:50 PM trip to Sonic that pushes curfew. None of these are huge things. In fact, they are all kind of normal. But it is the little things - the seemingly insignificant things - that have meant the most to me, that have made the biggest difference in my life. I like to think of my Harding experience in terms of these “holy moments.”

Sometimes these little holy moments are obvious, like when they sing my favorite song at Downtown on Sunday night or when I go to my small group - the same one that I have been going to since freshman year - and just the right message is spoken that is just what my heart needed to hear. Whenever things like that happen, you just know it is a holy moment. 

Some of these holy moments are more spontaneous, like grabbing a cup of coffee with a friend and sipping it slowly as the conversation naturally turns deeply spiritual. Or taking a weekend camping trip and sitting around the campfire late at night, watching the light glow on faces as we open our hearts, share our testimonies, and talk about life and faith and God’s Word together.

Other times, these holy moments are quietly disguised. For me, it came one time in the form of a pumpkin pie milkshake. I was with a friend, and we were driving back to Searcy from Little Rock late one night after completing/surviving our first clinical rotation during our first semester of nursing school. We stopped at Sonic, and for the first time in what felt like forever, we actually took time to stop working and stressing and breathe. We both ordered a pumpkin pie milkshake, and then we celebrated together how God had brought us through that rough semester. That night, His faithfulness came in milkshake form. Oftentimes, holy moments are found in unexpected places.

I think about our Monday night potlucks - a tradition with a group of my girl friends. Whenever we get together, there is laughter, and in that laughter, I have come to know the joy of the Lord in ways that I have never known it before. Those are holy moments. That same group of girls gets together every Sunday night, and we sit in the floor of Searcy dorm and worship, study the Word, and pray. We are talking about the craziness of life one moment and the glory of God the next, and in both of those are holy moments.

These are the moments that I will treasure forever, that I will always remember when I think about my time at Harding. Sometimes the Harding experience is defined by studying abroad and joining a social club, both of which are incredible blessings, but some Harding students are like me and did not have the chance to study abroad. I didn't join a club until my sophomore year, and some students don't join a club at all. The Harding experience is not lived out in foreign countries or in social clubs, but rather in relationships and in holy moments.

I can honestly say that Harding has changed my life. I am not the same person that stepped onto campus four years ago. These past four years have been a time of rapid, even exponential growth.

I have grown in knowledge because I am blown away by the preparation I have received here to become a nurse.

I have grown in purpose because it was here that God confirmed His calling on my life to missions, making my dreams come true.

And I have grown spiritually because God’s presence is in this place, and I think I have found it mainly through relationships. Bonds have been formed with classmates, professors, and friends, and these bonds are eternal because we have lived life together, through thick and thin. And trust me, there has been both thick and thin, both struggle and victory, both heartache and joy. Yet that’s what makes these relationships so meaningful. 

Where else will we ever be where there is such nearness of relationships? The people that mean so much to us are also so close to us…in our rooms or just next door, down the hall, or across campus. It hardly takes a text or a phone call for you and a friend to drop what you are doing to be there for each other. There is a literal spacial nearness, but also a spiritual nearness of relationships here at Harding that is absolutely incredible.

My favorite Scripture is John 10:10 where Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full". Here at Harding, my life has been poured and poured into by my professors, my mentors and leaders, my church family, my peers and friends, and by experiences and “holy moments”. I look at all this and say, “Wow, my life is so full. Christ has made my life so full.”

So thank you, Jesus, for giving me the experience of a lifetime, for training me to be a nurse, for teaching me to be a missionary, for building relationships that are eternal, and for doing all this through Harding.

Ten more days. Ten more days to do all the things we can to relive all our favorite memories and maybe even try a few new things. Ten more says to finish strong. Ten more days to open our eyes and be aware of even more “holy moments”.  Ten more days, not to the end of course, but to a new beginning. Holy moments don’t end after this. God has so much more in store, so let’s go discover it and live life to the full.  Because no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind can conceive what God has prepared for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.