A Fresh Word

I have a high school junior this year. This means that last week I toured two college campuses. It means I nag about studying for the PSAT, that I finally read those incessant emails from the high school College and Career Connections office, that I spend my free time googling things like "what do you do with a physics degree?" I don't feel ready for any of it, but when does that ever keep life from charging on?

A number of years ago, I heard Pomp and Circumstance playing while I was shopping at Sam's. I thought to myself, "Some day, that song's gonna bring me to my knees." That day is coming quick. But I don't want the song to take me down. I don't want to be leveled by the stress and emotion and finality of seeing my son finish up his time in high school and launch into the bigger world. These are exciting things! And I have never been one to want to keep my kids little. Every year they get older (which seems to happen a lot) is a year that I enjoy them more. I want to do this transitioning-my-kids-to-life-beyond-our-home thing well. I don't want to dread it, resist it, or allow it to make me crazy.

The book of Colossians is helping. Two years ago, I spent weeks poring over Colossians as part of my work. I studied Greek roots and cross-referenced dozens of verses. Passages about "putting off" and "putting on" ran through my head as I tried to sleep. By the end, I was done with Colossians. I thought it would be a good, long time before I returned to it again, and yet my reading plan has led me right back there this month.

TV preachers talk about getting a "fresh word," which makes me a little cynical. What does that even mean? God's Word is unchanging. The Colossians of two years ago is still the Colossians of today. What has changed, though, is me. I think that's at the core of a "fresh word." There are passages I'm reading now in Colossians that I didn't need two years ago--no matter how much I studied them then. But I sure need them now.

I need to heed the instruction to "set my heart on things above." I need to notice that it doesn't just say to set my heart there, but, in the very next verse, to set my mind there, too. Standardized tests and college tours are not "things above." They're important, for sure, but they're not eternal. In twenty years, they won't matter. A lot of the concerns on my mind today, the things Paul called "light and momentary troubles," won't even matter in a month. So why do I give them so much of my most precious commodity, my brain space? When my thoughts and emotions begin to work themselves into a dither, Colossians reminds me to set my heart and my mind on things above, things that will matter eternally.

And then there's Colossians 1:17. Its neighbors, verses 15 and 16, get all the attention. They contain some of the richest, most informative theology in all of Scripture, and I spent long hours studying them two years ago. How easy it was to overlook little verse 17: "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." The "he" and "him" here are Christ. He came first, existing even before time itself, and He holds everything together. Got it. But the verse takes on new meaning when I consider myself part of "everything." It starts to look like this: "Jesus came before you, Leura, and He holds you together." Of course that means my atoms, my heartbeat, keeping me glued to the earth through gravity. But it also means He holds me together mentally and emotionally when I feel like I'm unraveling. He keeps me grounded in truth. He reins in my wild thoughts and emotions. He settles me with His peace. I am held together by one much bigger than a sentimental graduation song or a FAFSA form.

My kids are all going to grow up and leave my house (we hope). My friends will move. My health will fail. Lord only knows what will happen in our nation. Constant change and periodic stress are guaranteed. But so is the fact that Jesus Christ, creator of everything, holds us together. Fix your mind on that today.