Real Adults

Over the next two months, my life will dramatically change from anything I've ever known. This eminent shifting has really started to become real to me this past week. For so long, just getting through school has consumed my time and my thought. My "future" has always seemed far away, somewhere much farther down the road.As I prepare to enter my last week of Undergrad classes however, that ever distant "future" seems incredibly close. 

Thus far, most of my life has been relatively predictable and planned (perhaps with the exception of getting married at age 20, but even that wasn't entirely unexpected). I was graduated from high school, got into college, got married, and now, I prepare to be graduated from college. What makes this approaching time so thrilling, yet daunting, is the ability to now CHOOSE what I want to do, and there really isn't only one correct answer. 

I've joked a lot lately that after graduation, my husband, Nick, and I will finally be "real adults". While I said it in jest, in many ways, this statement in true. I'm gaining a greater understanding and appreciation for this powerful blessing. Life is all about choices. Sometimes these choices are really hard, sometimes really exciting, and sometimes they are both hard and exciting. As we prepare to enter our "real adulthood", I feel both the excitement and the difficulty, but I also feel gratitude that I even have the opportunity to make such choices. 

I am incredibly eager to see what the next year has in store for our family. While I don't know most of the details, I'm starting to see shapes and hints of what is to come. 

And it is going to be good...

This is My Creed

"This is My Creed--

To live each day as though I may never see the morrow come; to be strict with myself, but patient and lenient with others; to give the advantage, but never ask for it; to be kind to all, but kinder to the less fortunate; to respect all honest employment; to remember that my life is made easier and better by the service of others and to be grateful.

To be tolerant and never arrogant; to treat all men with equal courtesy; to be true to my own in all things; to make as much as I can of my strength and the day's oppourtunity; and to meet disappointment without resentment.

To be friendly and helpful whenever possible; to do without display of temper of bitterness, all that fair conduct demands, and to keep my money free from the cunning or the shame of a hard bargain; to govern my actions so that I may fear neither reproach nor misunderstanding, nor words of malice or envy, and to maintain at whatever temporary cost, my own self respect.

This is my creed and my philosophy. I have failed it often and shall fail it many times again; but by these teachings I have lived to the best of my ability; laughed often, loved, suffered, grieved, found consolation, and have prospered. By friendships I have been enriched, and the home I have built has been happy."

I have heard "My Creed" read at the end of every summer at Waldemar since 1999. In 2008, I had the absolute honor of being the counselor chosen to recite "My Creed" at the Ideal Waldemar Girl ceremony. Even as a young girl, the words resonated with me in a way that I didn't really understand. Something about them rang true in my soul.

As the years have gone on, my understanding of "My Creed" has grown and deepened in ways that I brings such words as, "gratitude", "purpose", and "truth" to my mind. I have often said that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and my time spent at Waldemar have shaped me into the woman I am today. I feel amazingly blessed to have had the chance to grow up with both of these influences in my life. The only thing I can think of to do to try and repay such blessings is to do my absolute best to be the most well rounded, loving, and faithful daughter of God that I can be.

This is my creed.