I gave this speech at my high school graduation on May 19th? of 2017.

Seems like eons ago. I've had to try and fail to practice what I spoke on hundreds of times since that night. Since then, I've had a horse die, struggled with loneliness and hopelessness in college, and have come to grips with a lot of darkness and sin in my life that I hid away in the back corner of my brain long ago. Welp, here it tis.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, students, family, faculty, and friends.

You have probably already looked through our program handout this evening. You will see the list of students and which colleges we will be attending. We are scattered all over. Written beside my name, I was hoping you would read some college out in Colorado. This has been my dream for years. However, you see Auburn University. There is a story to this, and it is the topic of my speech.

We are dreamers, we humans, and we all have certain great expectations and dreams for our lives. None of us hope for broken lives and broken dreams, but when we do suffer, and we will, when God chooses not to move the mountains, can we still say “God is good” and “it is well with my soul?”

I could not.

My dreams of Colorado were broken last semester when I stood on the brink of my future and decided to go to Auburn University. In my mind, I gave up adventure and happiness. You might be thinking, geez she's dramatic, but it was not just Colorado; there were a bunch of personal things going on as well. I saw a future that I did not want, and I looked on my past and saw the sorrows instead of all the beauty. I lost my joy. I grew tired of believing that God’s plans were good when my heart felt like it had been torn out of my chest.

The peak of my low was just a few weeks ago. I was wallowing in a pity party over my future on the way to soccer practice. I was miserable, and I felt like God had deserted me. But He had not. God showed up uninvited to my party and reminded me of my absolute favorite story. It is C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, book five of the Chronicles of Narnia. I am not going to tell you the whole story - wish I could - but, I will give you enough so that you will understand the point I want to make tonight.

The book is set in the wide world of Narnia, and it tells the story of a boy named Shasta who has rotten luck, or thinks he does. As a baby, he was found with a dead soldier in a drifting boat by a stinky fisherman in the land of Calormene. As a boy enslaved to this fisherman, Shasta meets a talking horse from Narnia named Bree and runs away to the north. They run into another pair of runaways - a princess named Aravis and her talking horse, Hwin. They end up discovering a plot by the evil nation, Calormene to destroy the good nation, Archenland. Btw Archenland is an ally of Narnia. A reluctant adventure follows as they race across the desert and mountains to warn Archenland and enlist Narnia to the rescue. At one point in the story, Shasta has gotten lost after warning a hunting party of Archenlanders. He is wandering over a mountain pass in thick fog all alone. He is lonely and hungry and resorts to a pity party. Shasta goes so far as to calls himself “the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world” and cries for himself. Then poor old Shasta becomes aware that some big animal, or thing, is walking beside his horse in the fog. And of course he's scared to death, but he starts up a conversation because he doesn't know what else to do. He tells this sympathetic voice beside him in the fog his sorrows, his long, sad story and his journey full of awful luck and lions. The voice, which is Aslan, suggests that maybe Shasta wasn't unfortunate and says that He has actually been with him the whole time. Aslan goes on to tell a shocked Shasta that “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead . . I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.” Then Aslan disappears, and an overwhelmed Shasta finds his way into Narnia and rallies them to come save Archenland from Calormene.

In reminding me of this story, God gently lifted me out of my self pity and reminded me of His goodness and love for me. Shasta thought he had an awful life and awful luck, but his misfortunes saved his kingdom. I realized that I lost my joy because I tied my happiness and contentment to a geographical location and to material things. I longed for the Rocky Mountains only because they are an echo of God’s beauty. The most beautiful place in the Rocky Mountains, the greatest friends, the perfect home, the perfect guy, everything the way I planned, none of it can fill the hole in my discontented heart that was made for God.

With all the pain and each broken expectation, it was like God was asking me, “Am I enough for you if you have nothing else? Will you still praise me if I take away your horse? Would you call me good if you couldn't run?” For years, God has been throwing down my idols until He was all that remained for me, and I had to face this choice.

So what did I do? God gave me the strength to surrender after a long struggle. The time had come to let go of the life that was never really mine, and I've never felt more free. It's a constant battle, but it's also an inexplicable peace to accept the adventure of an uncertain future in the hands of a known God. I have to constantly ask myself, do you want to rust out mourning broken dreams or burn out chasing God’s plans? Ann Voskamp once said, “Courage isn’t about doing what you want in life. Courage is about laying down your life. Otherwise it’s not courage. It’s self gratification.”

Only God, the one who breathed the stars and created all of us dreamers, can fill the hole in our hearts and bring us the peace that passes understanding. Without Him there is only despair, only the return to dust.

So, I am going to put my baby dreams into God’s hands. He made me and put those desires in my heart for a reason. There’s a David Livingstone quote that I pray that we will all have the courage to say. “God, lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Send me anywhere, only go with me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to yours.”

At the end of The Horse and His Boy, King Lune of Archenland, realizes Shasta is actually his son - he had twin boys, Cor and Corin - and they were separated at birth by an evil advisor. All of his trials prepared him for saving and ruling his kingdom.The story ends wonderfully with Shasta (Prince Cor) and Aravis getting married and ruling Archenland.

And here is our hope.

For Christians have the promise that we are all sons and daughters of the greatest King. Even if we have nothing but that promise, we can say “it is well with my soul.”

Imagine all the amazing adventures and stories we will have because we took the hard, uncertain, and joyful road and by God’s grace were never allowed to wallow in our pity and sin for too long. And we will have eternity to tell these stories of beauty from ashes and according to Lewis, to explore further up and further in, running in a crowd of beloved friends to meet all those servants of the True King that you've ever loved or heard about in a beautiful green garden in the midst of snow covered mountains in God’s country

at the end of all time.

And now it is my turn to set sail from Eastwood on the sea of life for the East, for Aslan’s country at the end of the world, with the smell of adventure blowing on the wind. See you there."

The End.

so...

Life has proved 'adventurous' since then. I'm probably a bit more cynical or pessimistic right at the moment in comparison to when I gave the speech. But life has its seasons, its cycles.

I asked in the speech if I would still call God good if He took away my horse. Well, He has, and I do. Out of that struggle came a lot of poetry, a lot of healing and growing. I am thankful that He took her..as I grit my teeth.

"He desires to save me heart and soul, to shape my ugly life, so I'll bare my flesh of rock to Him and submit beneath His knife."

Auburn University was just a huddle of expectations and shadowy shapes to me back then. It still had my spin on it. But now God has written the definitive story. Now I am actually here 'on the field,' running across the pages. And it is certainly different than I thought... But always the lion, the Hound of Heaven, Jesus, is in my story, pushing my stupid self or following me with steady, pursuing steps, walking beside me, loving me.

He is truly Emmanuel, "God with us."

One semester of college has flashed across the pages of my life like lightning, but He is there, scrawled in the words, shaping the story. Each day, seems like I get sicker and sicker of myself. Jesus, be my story, may I become a faded shadow, a wisp of smoke on the pages this life. May people only see you in this little life of mine.

So, up the hill of today and onto adventure, onto eternity.

More of You, the greatest Author, less of me.