Peace Out, Fall 2013!

Fall 2013 is in the books.  All my grades are turned in, I'm done at the office for the year, and I can say that I made it.  On this side of having made it, though, I can say that it feels a lot different than I expected.

I sort of expected to feel like the lady on top -- euphoric, celebratory, and accomplished.  Instead I feel like the dude at the bottom -- yep I made it, but barely and certainly not without help from friends when it was rough.

Since I left work on Friday, I've been in a numb sense of shock wondering, "What just happened?  Did all of that really go down this semester -- the semester I wasn't even planning on being here?"  And the answer is, yes -- all of that went down.  Every little thing.  And it took a bigger toll on me than I thought so I've spent a fair amount of time just crying and processing through the semester since it wrapped up.

What's obvious now that it's over is that God sustained me every day of that semester.  There is no way I should have been able to make it through that semester, but I did.  And now I will celebrate that, even if it looks like that dude in the bottom picture and I celebrate by collapsing in both physical and emotional exhaustion.  Victory doesn't always look like we expect, but it is still worth celebrating.  Even moreso, I celebrate the one who kept me from stumbling and sustained me in the hard times I wondered if I would make it.