I thought High School Graduation was gonna be a bigger deal...

I graduated High School yesterday and the question I’ve gotten the most is “How does it feel??” and my answer is “I don’t know”. As I watched the people that I have spent most of my days with for the past 12 years celebrate and overflow with excitement, I just felt weird. I felt like I was an actor in a movie playing the part. Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy that I don’t have to take another class that I have absolutely no interest in, trying to keep my grades up because instead of studying or doing my homework I am doing things that interest me more or things that I think can change the world, and most importantly I am SOOOOO happy I don’t have to deal with petty high school drama anymore, but that’s about it. I know that High School graduation is a big deal because we’re finally done with the major thing we have been doing for the past 12 years, but I feel like I’ve been checked out of the “Mentality of High School” for so long.

For so many people, while they are in High School, it’s their life. Yes, I was still excited for school dances, concerts, and rivalry games for my senior year, but that’s because they were my lasts. The last times I would be at those events as a student at the High School, but none of it ever felt real or that I actually belonged there. I was just doing what all the other seniors did and feeling how seniors were “supposed to feel”. I’ve always known my calling in life is bigger than I can even imagine and since my freshman year that’s the majority of what I’ve been focused on, not actual high school. It surely didn’t help my sophomore year when we were introduced to COVID because after that, high school didn’t really seem to matter that much at all anymore, there were much bigger things in store.

As we had our final roll call and everyone walked up and got their diploma and we moved our tassel from the right to the left, the moment felt surreal because I was celebrating for different reasons than the rest. I was celebrating that I didn’t have to be tied down to high school, absolutely none of my time and effort had to go towards it, and that I was done with one of the things I dreaded the most for the past 4 years. Meanwhile, everyone else is celebrating and excited that this chapter came to an end so that they can move onto the next, but I moved onto the next chapter long before now. Although I was still in High School, my mind and spirit were in the future. I’ve been in the chapter that everyone else is looking forward to for at least 2 years now. All of our chapters up til now have pretty much all looked the same, but this chapter doesn’t look the same as everyone else's and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

The Runaway Project has been something the Lord has been stirring in me for awhile now, at least since 7th grade. And it’s finally started to come together the past few years. I knew since 7th grade that I wanted to be in Youth Ministry, but I never knew what that looked like. The Runaway Project started to come together for me around a time of a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty of Covid, community, and most importantly my health and the autoimmune disease I had just been diagnosed with, but the one thing I knew for sure was, I was to start The Runaway Project. The vision of The Runaway Project is that we all have something to Runaway from, not out of weakness, but out of strength. Strength to say “I’m not going to let this define or hold me back from who I could be”. We are all Runaways, but it’s different for each one of us. We just gotta figure out what we are running away from, but most importantly it’s about who we are running to! Jesus. The lover of my soul, and yours too! It blows my mind sometimes to even try to comprehend His love, and that’s exactly why I knew God was calling me to start this ministry. Because so much of the youth (and everybody really!) have never experienced the Raw, Honest, Genuine Love of Christ. I want to change that, to show the world that there is more to Jesus than religion, checking the boxes off the checklist and trying to live up to the unreachable standard. Nobody’s perfect, but one of my favorite things about Jesus is His grace. Because even when I do fall short, He continues to forgive and love me.

It’s already been such a fun journey seeing this project grow and touch lives, but I’m so excited to see what else God will do through this ministry! But, Whoop Whoop, I graduated High School!!