It is the end of another school year. This means that it is the beginning of another summer! It is the end of high school for some and the beginning of college or work. It is the end of one program and the beginning of another. It is the end of an era and the beginning of an era. It is the end of a pregnancy and the beginning of parenthood.
Summer was usually my favorite time of the year. The kids no longer had homework so we could watch a movie in the evening without jeopardizing papers or projects or problems. Life was less cluttered with things to do. The beach was an actual destination we could go to. The most important thing was how to stay cool enough and to drink enough. Life was good then.
Summer was also a time to look ahead. When I was home schooling I would spend hours studying what books they would use and what projects they should do. I would make long elaborate lesson plans, which in later years I realized would mostly be wasted, but it was such fun!
When home schooling came to an end, I enjoyed the kids being carefree without homework and learning the more natural way. We would also be thinking about the next school year. The need for clothes, books, classes. As they went from grade school to high school to college, the needs were pretty much the same. They still needed clothes and books and they are still trying to get the right classes. But they also thought about cars, jobs, parking and what direction they were going with their classes.
Life is full of endings that are usually followed by beginnings. Even when someone dies, they begin the afterlife. After my daughter’s wedding, they began the honeymoon. At the end of the honeymoon, they begin their life together. There are times we look back on with fond memories and times we look forward to with excitement. And there are times we look back on with bittersweet pleasure and times we see coming with trepidation.
So as we end this school year and begin the summer programs, jobs, vacations, let us remember the One Who is in our ending and our beginning.
Revelations 21:6 Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. “
Isaiah 41:4 “Who did this? Who made it happen? Who always gets things started? I did. God. I’m first on the scene. I’m also the last to leave.
Ecclesiastes 7:8a Endings are better than beginnings.
Colossians 1:17 He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.
Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
