My life is full of last things right now. Last week I completed my last layout night with Chimes. Last week I led my last meeting with Chimes. This week also contained my last day of classes. The last time I will sit in a desk and listen to a professor give a lecture. I will take my last exam next week. I have no intentions of ever going to grad school, so this is my last week to be a student.

I’ve thought of this point in my life a lot over the past four years. I wondered if it would even happen: did I have what it takes to get through college? At times I didn’t think so. There was one point where a professor suggested I was overloaded and should drop their course. They meant it in the best way and were just trying to help me, but at the time that bit of advice nearly broke me. Nearly. It didn’t. I pressed on. I finished my first year, pulled through my sophomore year, clung on through my junior year, and dragged myself through senior year. Senioritis hit me hard second semester. But I’m still here.

And now I will leave. I will walk across the stage of the Van Noord Arena and I will take my diploma and I will go out into the world and beg it to give me a job. Because while I am going through the lasts of my college career, I have many firsts to get through for my occupational career. I have yet to walk in for my first day of work. Yet to receive my first promotion. Yet to go out with new work friends.

I have to believe all that will happen, just as I believed I’d get through four years of college. Nothing is for sure yet. I’m still waiting on applications. But God was faithful when I took up the challenge of college. He guided me, and I heard his call to come to Calvin. And now I listen for the next step. I trust that he has a plan, and this it is for my good.

I will miss Calvin College. One more last to add to my list is that I am part of the last graduating class of Calvin College. I leave this college behind, and it will become a university in my absence. But I will return, I am sure. I will come back for Rangeela. I will go back down to the Chimes office and remember. While these are my last days as a student, this will not be the last time that I am on this campus. I will leave Calvin College, but I will never forget my time here.

To use a phrase from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” I am not saying farewell; I am saying “fare forward.” Going forward to see what God yet has in store for me.