Message to Young Graduates (Borrowed)

Last night I watched my daughter and her friends graduate from high school. An exciting night.

They all looked so beautiful and fresh and happy. From one angle they look so grown up, but then you look again and they seem so young.

I’ve said many things to my daughter as we’ve talked about her going off to college in the fall, and doubtless will say many more things. But I think if one wanted to say one thing to all of these young people – both those who graduated with Elena last night and all the other who will go off to face a ner adventure in the fall – it is hard to do better than than the message conveyed by Ita Ford in a birthday letter she wrote to her niece and godchild on her 16th birthday. The letter was written three months before Ita’s murder in El Salvador along with three other missionary women.

Here is what she wrote:

I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you. Something worth living for, maybe even worth dying for. Something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can’t tell you what it might be ‐‐ that’s for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking, and support you in the search.

Congratulations to the Minnetonka High School class of 2011. May you find that which gives life deep meaning for you…and we’ll be there for support you in the search.