As many of you know, my small group girls graduated in May. They’ve been in college now for a week. I wanted to see them before they left but I knew they were busy packing up and spending time with their friends. walk to school

In the end, five out of the ten texted me seperately to get together. So the week before they left, I was squeezing in coffee and frozen yogurt and a few hours of conversation on my living room sofa.

During the course of my one-on-one conversations with them, I asked them all the same question before our time was over – When May comes and you look back on your freshman year, what do you hope you’ll be able to say about it?

They all had a little different answers depending on their goals and personalities.

But not one of them said, You know Emily, I really hope I’ll be able to say that I was anxious, worried, and fearful the whole year.

We don’t plan for anxiety and we don’t hope for it, either. It tends to show up without an invitation. Same goes for doubt, procrastination, comparison, and defeat.

Walking our fourth grade girls and our first grade son to school this week, I’ve been thinking about the end of the year – What do I hope they’ll be able to say about this year when the end of it comes? What do I hope to say myself?

Maybe a better question is this one:

What can I do today to practice the future I hope we’ll have?

I wonder what it is for you – when this school year is over, what word or phrase do you hope you’ll be able to use to describe it? Is there any way to practice that future today?