25th College Reunion

They tell me it has been 25 years since my graduation from Wheaton College.

I can't quite believe that. Somewhere inside this seasoned mom of six and wife of 25+ years, I still feel like a college freshman. Wait, make that a college senior.  (I do not feel anywhere close to a recent high school graduate.)

I can't write off the ensuing 25 years, for so much has happened in that era, but still, what a formative time those four years of college were!

I am watching my own daughter, now a college sophomore, make a slow transition into the adult world, with adult responsibilities. And I know I traveled that same road when I chose a college 6 hours from my Ohio home, which ended up taking me even to Europe--on an unchaperoned train-and-hostel trip with three other girls--and regularly into the just-as-foreign Windy City. By the end of those four years, I had met "the one" and graduated as a married woman. What a whirlwind of growing up!

My one regret of college was that I went steady with a guy, all of my freshman year and half of my sophomore year, and I started dating my husband at the beginning of our junior year.  Though I don't regret dating my husband, of course, I do feel like I missed out on girlfriend time.

But God has a way of redeeming things. I was in a small Bible study with three other friends during my last two years at Wheaton. The four of them, plus my wonderful roommate--God sure was good to me there--made up my wedding party. It was through one of those three friends that I found traveling companions for our memorable trip to Europe.

At our 20th reunion, I discovered that some of these same girls, from the Europe trip and the Bible study, had formed an email group to stay in touch and share prayer requests. In the group were other girls that I knew through mutual friends and from being on the same dorm floor.  I casually asked them to add me to the list too, not realizing what a sisterhood I was asking to join--and they have become a significant force in my life in the last five years! We have shared deeply and prayed one another through crises, decisions, adoption, divorce, retirement, sudden death of a husband and other tough stuff.  Girlfriends, indeed. Thank you, Lord!

And I get to see three of them this weekend!

Also get to see Professor Brother and his wife--it's their 20th, so they are coming from Kansas--and we'll other friends from our class. I am excited!

But still disbelieving. I am actually not old enough for this.

But if they go this quickly, here's to another 25!