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Almighty King and reign over us,
help us, your praise to sing, Father
glorious, to Christ on
high, by His Spirit now we
cry,
your
majesty, face to
worship and adore.
O darned
world, relentless love, bearing our fatal
curse, with your living blood,
help us see your cross again, you're the rock on which
we live, Jesus,
Savior,
majesty, face
to
comfort, give grace to
weary hearts, bring back the wonder,
drive away the dark, for the summer,
for the fountain of our hope,
our assurance here
behold of the
Son,
save
my
guilty,
I
cannot
cleanse my
guilt,.
Make my spirit, for nothing
but the,
I dare not
blame,
God's pardon I've received, I'm washed within
His precious blood, my heart is free.
The gospel was promised by sages and prophets, the
scripture spoke of a Son, descendant of
David, yet uncreated, clothed in our flesh He
would come, predestined to seek us, He took on
our weakness, and died our death on the cross,
but just as was spoken, the grave could not hold Him, the
glorious Son of God, His name is Jesus,
His name is Jesus,
to see His mercy proclaim, announcing
salvation to every nation, all for the sake
of His name, we're no longer strangers, for
Jesus our Savior, has come to make us His own,
born to be holy, and now we
live only in
Jesus
Christ,
His name is Jesus, His name is
Jesus, His name is
Jesus Christ,.
Our
mighty fortress is our God, His shield never fails,.
Amid the flood of mortal ills, His power will prevail,.
Our ancient foe is cruel and armed with hate,
yet with one word He'll bow to Jesus' reign,.
Hope in God, oh my soul, He is strong and He is strong
to save,.
In our own hands, our
confidence is in the
One, who holds the worlds in place, He
fights for us,.
The sovereign Lord of hosts, from age to
age, the triumphs His
alone
reign.
We need to talk to Lisa Slippy and identify all of the serial numbers on all of the bills, and the
envelope, and the order in which those serial numbers are in the envelope, and we'll give it to you.
And if you can't do that, then we'll give it to whichever student can come up here and name...
All the presidents.
Good raffle.
Okay, that is my only announcement.
Thank you.
Testing.
There we go.
Okay, perfect.
So welcome to the 2021 Grad Night, where a bunch of kids finally get to stop going to school,
and instead get to work for the rest of your life.
Congrats!
Yay!
Alright, so first up, everyone will need to look a little bit lower, because this graduate is a bit on the height -deprived
side.
Unable to ever reach her goal of 360 windmill dunking on her brother, and may need a warning label tattooed on
her forehead of no filter may make you cry.
Who also has the family problem of road raging at people who go the speed limit.
Give it up, a little bit lower, for Raelynn McArthur!
Alright, this next graduate has a love of ice cream, but doesn't like its cousin cheese.
Would love to be a magician if he was in the circus, and hates to fly, but wishes he would enjoy it.
He is looking forward to a summer of golf and family reunion with everyone here at the Lake in July.
Give it up for Andrew Hernandez!
Alright, this graduate absolutely hates the word bunion, so I'm going to say it a lot.
Who often gets in trouble for her stubbornness, but also enjoys having it as a trait.
And unlike me, does not have a crippling fear of heights, because she would be a trapeze artist if she was in the circus.
And has the song that you will now be singing in your head the rest of the night, Barbie Girl Memorized.
Give it up for Elise Reiter!
Alright, up next, this graduate wishes he loved tomatoes, but hates them.
Also loves ranch on rice.
Which kind of rice?
Frankly, we don't know.
This pyromaniac wishes that lightsabers were real, so he can light things on fire, or cause explosions, because why not?
He may or may not fall asleep in his next band class.
Sorry mom, and dad.
Give it up for Sam Becker!
Alright, this next graduate is probably going to school to be a male car model.
But if his modeling career doesn't take off, he plans on trying to be the next yellow M &M guy, because food of course.
He's the kind of guy who's doing his part to save you money and help you live better, but also irritate your eardrums by restoring
his 2000 Mazda Miata, so he can sound really loud, going really slow.
Give it up for Leo Osmond!
Alright, this next graduate really, really, really hates snakes.
Especially the ones that are the size of an elephant.
No reason, just really hates them.
If you have ever wanted to get rid of $100 ,000 just because it was burning a hole in your pocket, you can watch her eat a spider, but
not a snake.
Give it up for Claire Cave!
Alright, this graduate would love to create an amphibious bird, but don't worry, God already did that
just in time for your graduation.
It's called a penguin.
However, one animal she does wish was real that isn't is a dragon.
Sick choice.
She would love to travel back in time to meet George Washington, because he's amazing, and survey says she's correct.
This graduate is going to be studying art, writing, and Japanese.
Give it up for Amy Razor!
Alright, this graduate was made possible by the teacher that lives in a pineapple under the sea.
That's right, SpongeBob SquarePants.
She loves the Lord with all her heart, loves her family and friends.
For her future, she would like to preserve her art, especially in oil painting.
Give it up for Auline Smith!
Would you please stand as we sing this evening our great God.
Eternal, mysterious,
and unknowing
soul.
Graduation, this marks the end of a certain phase of your life, and the beginning of another
phase of your life.
It is probably the most monumental thing that has happened to you on this earth, aside from your
nine -inch journey down a birth canal, which you had nothing to do with, and which you probably don't remember, but you will
remember this.
And this is a significant event.
And graduation is a good opportunity for you guys to take some, answer some questions, and
take some inventory as to where you're at and what you're going to do with the rest of your life.
And this is the point where, when you graduate from high school, you start to ask yourself all kinds of questions, and you get asked questions by other
people.
Other people ask you, so what are you going to do with the rest of your life?
You don't know that, do you?
Because you really don't know what the rest of your life holds.
I didn't know what I was going to do with it.
I still don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
I hope it's what I've been doing with the better part of the last part of my life, but I don't know what holds for me.
Or people will ask you, so what does the future hold for you?
You don't know that.
I don't know that.
Nobody here knows that.
Because the truth is, any one of you could be dead by this time next week.
And I don't say that to be funny.
That's just the truth.
Any one of us could be dead by this time next week.
Because we have no guarantee on what life holds.
We have no guarantee on tomorrow, the next breath that we take, or what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or next month or a
year from now.
All we can do is hope for the best and hope that we make decisions now that will impact us positively in
the future.
But you have a lot of plans that you have to make and a lot of decisions that you have to make and a lot of directions that are
available to you.
People ask you questions about what you want to do with the rest of your life and what does the future hold and what are you going to do next.
You can kind of plan that out, but you don't have any guarantee on any of that.
You hope you might be accurate with some of it.
And you're going to be wanting to answer all kinds of questions like who am I going to marry and where am I going to live and
what education am I going to pursue after high school and what job am I going to have and what are my career choices and what career
should I choose.
And those are all big questions.
Those are all big decisions.
But there's an even bigger question that you should be asking at this point.
And it's not what am I going to do with the rest of my life, but for whom am I going to live the rest of my life.
That's the big question that you need to answer.
You need to get that answer out of the way first before you can answer any other question.
Because if you have that question answered correctly and if you're answering it in the right way, then you can make other
decisions along the path that will help you to aim at your goal, which ought to be the glory of God.
And so I bring in now this text from 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31, where the apostle says, whether
then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
And we might add we give thanks to God through Jesus Christ in this life.
Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for the glory of God.
Now, it is impossible for anyone in this room to obey that command or to achieve that goal to do everything for the
glory of God, whether you eat or whether you drink.
It's impossible to do that if, first of all, you are not rightly related to God through Jesus Christ
and have a personal relationship with Him through what His Son has done for you on a cross.
If you are not a believer and you've never repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation, you cannot in this world
make decisions that will honor and glorify God because there is nothing that you can do as an unsaved individual with
a heart that is dark and corrupt and a mind that is twisted and an inability to honor and plod, there's
no way for you to obey that command to give Him glory in every little thing that you do.
Only a Christian can do that.
But if you've never repented of your sin, you must repent of your sin because we are sinners.
Scripture says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And because we have sinned, we have heaped up a debt of wrath that God owes us because of our sin
so that in all of our iniquity and in all of our sins we are heaping up for the day of judgment a
store of wrath that God will pour out upon any who do not repent and lay hold of the salvation
that is found in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
The bad news is that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that we are guilty before God.
Scripture declares that to be the case.
Our conscience bears witness to the fact that that is true.
We have lied.
We've stolen.
We have blasphemed God's name.
We've taken His name in vain.
We have dishonored our parents.
We have not done everything that we can for the glory of God in every moment of our life from the point of our birth until now.
We're fallen and ruined and hopeless and helpless sinners.
That is our natural state.
That is how we come into this world.
And then every time we commit a sin, we heap up yet another transgression on our rap sheet
and we stand before God guilty and condemned and depraved and unable to save ourselves.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the second person of the Trinity, into this world.
The Lord Jesus Christ lived a perfect life.
He lived the life that you and I were required by the law of God to live.
He lived it in our stead.
And then He died on a cross and He bore the wrath that we deserve to pay for our sin.
So Scripture says that God made Him, that is Christ, who knew no sin and had never done any sin, He made Him to
be sin in our stead and He treated Him as if He had committed all of the sins that we have committed
so that He might turn around then and treat us as if we had done all of the righteous deeds that Jesus Christ had done.
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
That's the glorious good news of the Gospel.
And then God commands us to repent, that is to acknowledge our sin, to see it as God sees it and to turn from that
sin and to trust and to believe that that message, that Jesus Christ came to this earth and lived a perfect life
and through His doing and through His dying and then through His resurrection, He has achieved
salvation for any and all who will trust in Him.
God commands us to repent of our sin and to believe that message of salvation, that Gospel, and to trust Christ
for the forgiveness of sins and for righteousness.
And when we do that, we are saved, we are redeemed and adopted into God's family and then we can
do all things for the glory of God, whether we eat or whether we drink.
Now, that passage that I read to you, 1 Corinthians 10, 31, in the context, the Apostle Paul
is dealing with the issues of brothers and sisters within the church who are eating and drinking things that would be offensive to other brothers and sisters.
He's talking in the context about use of our liberty and doing things not to offend other people's conscience.
That's the context of that.
And the Apostle Paul says in that, that in dealing with that issue within the body of Christ, our goal should be
to live for the glory of God so that in our eating and in our drinking, what we're not concerned about is primarily
our Christian liberty.
We're not concerned about what we eat or how we eat.
What we are concerned about is can I do this thing to the glory of God?
And what is magnificent about that passage, I find, is that the things that the Apostle Paul says that we should do
for the glory of God, whatever we do, he names two rather mundane things, eating and drinking.
It's really a simple thing, just eat and drink.
And that's something that you and I have already done at some point today.
You did it without even thinking about it.
It's one of the most natural things that you do in your life.
It's one of the most necessary things that you do throughout all of your life.
You do it several times a day.
You sometimes will do it without even thinking that you should be giving God thanks for that cup of water.
And by the way, if you drank a cup of water and you didn't thank God for that cup of water today, that in itself was a sin because you failed to give Him glory
for giving you even that provision.
So that was yet another transgression that you have heaped up against a holy and righteous God.
But I'll lay that aside for just a second.
The eating and the drinking, those are two very simple, very mundane, very everyday things that the Apostle says
we can do for the glory of God.
Your guys' concern as you look out over the rest of your life is not what great things can I do for God.
Because oftentimes we have this image that I can only glorify God if I pastor a church of 10 ,000 people
or if I'm a Christian singer or celebrity who sings before 20 ,000 people a week or if I'm the head of a
corporation and I'm able to implement my worldview for everybody underneath me or if I can achieve some
position of power and influence in the political realm or in the government or in entertainment.
If I could get some big pedestal, some big platform and do some great thing, if I can cure cancer, if I can
solve the mystery of nuclear fusion or if I can cure some other disease, Alzheimer's, then I
would be able to glorify God in those big things.
That is not what the Apostle Paul says we are to be concerned with.
We are to be concerned with glorifying God in the small things, whether we eat or whether we drink.
Those are two very simple and small things.
And our concern should not be that we aim for great and high and lofty things to glorify
God.
If God should put that into your life, if he should give you that platform, then, of course, use it to glorify God.
But your primary concern should be, am I able to glorify God?
Am I committed to glorifying God in all of the mundane things that I do day to day?
You see, your life is a series of small decisions that you make, small things that
you do, small activities that you're engaged in each and every day for the rest of your life.
That will build your life.
So if you are looking for the big thing to come along so that you can glorify God in the big thing and you're missing all of the
mundane ways that you can glorify God, you're going to be missing all of the glorious and mundane ways that
you can glorify God.
He doesn't call you to look and seek for great things to glorify him.
He calls you to take the mundane things of life and to glorify him in those.
It's the small things.
Every day of your life, you will have an opportunity to glorify God in the things that you eat,
the things that you drink, the people that you meet, the things that you say, the decisions that you make.
So God calls you to glorify him by being a faithful husband, being a faithful wife, being a faithful father,
being a faithful mother, being a Christian parent who raises your kids in the fear and admonition of God and passes on to them
a legacy.
It's the small acts.
It's the small things done each and every day.
Those are the things that you ought to be committed to.
The big question is not, what big thing can I achieve for God to glorify him?
The big question for you is, how can I aim at the glory of God and do that in all of the mundane things that I do each and
every day?
And if you are committed to glorifying God in all of the small things that you do each and every day, most of which nobody will notice,
most of which will never make headlines, most of which will not get posted on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok
or Snapchat or MeWe or any of the other nonsense that you're all involved in, most of that stuff will never go out there and be noticed
by anybody, and most of it will not be rewarded in this life or seen by other people or you'll even get
thanked for.
Most of it will be completely unrecognized by all of the world,
but God sees it, even in the small things, eating and drinking for the glory of God.
He sees the small things, and you build one small thing, one act of faithfulness upon one act of faithfulness
upon another, upon an act of obedience upon an act of faithfulness and obedience and faithfulness, and you do that for 60
or 70 years, and you know what you will have lived?
A life of faithful obedience to the glory of God.
And there is no higher aim for the Christian, there is no greater goal for the Christian, and there is no greater
achievement in this world than a life that is lived for the glory of God.
Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, the mundane, small, everyday things, do it faithfully,
do it in obedience to God, do it for His glory, and you will live a life that is aimed at
and achieves the glory of God in everything.
It might not be a big thing, but it's the small things that count.
That's my charge to you.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank You for Your grace and goodness to these graduates, and it is my prayer and the prayer of many who are here that they would
live lives that are honoring and glorifying to You, and that in all that they do, that they may give glory to You through
the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom You sent to be a sacrifice for our sins.
And we pray that You would be honored through their lives, that You would give them grace to remember these things and to obey You and
Your Word in everything.
We thank You for the sacrifice of Christ and pray that if there's anybody here who does not know Christ, a Savior and Lord, that they may get that
issue taken care of so that they can live a life that is glorifying to You in all of the small and mundane things.
Be honored, we pray, through all of the recognition and all that we do here this evening.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Why anybody in the world thought putting me up here first was the greatest idea?
I'm just saying.
There is no switch on.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Does it work now?
Yeah.
Hey, how we doing back there, bud?
All the pressure's on you.
Not me.
I'm just up here killing dead air time.
Not really sure if this is live streamed or not, but they have to listen to me.
Hey, we're there.
Really?
Hello.
And you guys let Andrew do announcements?
We are in a North Idaho church.
Don't do that again.
I saw at least five people, and one of them wasn't the cop.
Okay, I'm done.
Stop.
Your fault, Deidre, for putting me up here first.
Now we're going to focus on Raelynn, and that's driving me nuts.
Exactly.
So let's go back to the fact of you are our third child.
Through all the education, we have picked different paths for each and every one of our kids.
You started out in the homeschool group, and then when Mom was trying to do three at the same time, we
realized this was just way too much, so we put you in public school with the Christian school.
If you're going to correct me, take the mic.
Sorry about the Christian school.
Then we moved to the public school system, and out of everything we saw, we kept a short leash
and always watched it.
You were our one who just needed to be around kids in a classroom and that social environment.
Through every bit of that, you never stumbled.
You never tripped.
You were always a light in those classes.
There was a time at Kootenai Elementary when they wanted to do the bow down thing, and you
basically said, I won't do a bow down because I don't think that's right.
You held to your Christian faith throughout all of your school.
There's a few of your friends who may say you stumbled a little bit, but you know what?
That's just being a teenager.
If you haven't learned from those events, then why did I send you to school in the first place?
So Jim always talks about how this is the simplest part of your life, and the rest of your life is going to be a little bit rougher
and all that kind of stuff, and he's probably right.
But you persevered.
You survived.
You graduated with a 3 .97.
Almost got those yellow cords if just for that one class that you didn't quite pull off.
But all I can say is they gave us 10 minutes.
I'm going to go ahead and stall this out as long as I possibly can.
Deidre's shaking her head, no, you put me up here first.
More than proud of everything you have accomplished in your life, and I know where you're going in your life, you will
continue to accomplish and do great things.
You got anything?
I'm done.
Let's see a slideshow.
Let's go, Bob. Let's go.
And his wife told his kids he was crazy.
And his friends said he'd fail if he tried.
Built a work hard library car.
Took a homemade fan.
Stopped
the waves as big as he'd seen it.
Deep in his dreams at
home at sand.
Closed the hatch up with one hand.
And paddled off
alone and
for once
in his life.
As he learned how to turn in the tide
And the sky was aflare when he came up for air
In his homemade submarine ride.
Well, your mom and I are very proud of you.
You've done a good job, and we just really appreciate how you've always stuck
up for the underdogs.
You've stood up to bullies, and we really love your
friends.
Libby and Nate and Dylan, you know, you're really good friends.
Love those kids, and that's been a very good reflection of the character that you have.
You know, good judgment on those kids.
And your other friends, too, right here in this church.
You know, you've worked hard.
Appreciate the dedication you've given to wrestling and pole vault.
You know, you've achieved some good things, or for being a short timer, especially in those things.
Yeah, and love how you have researched Scripture.
You've done those things on your own, and you've worked hard at that, and you've, you
know, yielded to what you've read, and you've had great conversations with your mom
and me on those things, and that is the skill that we wanted
to see, you know, most of all.
And you've done a good job, and we feel good about, you know, the initiative you've
taken with your future, and we're not worried about where you're going
next.
So, good job.
We love you.
We're very proud of you.
Andrew really lights up our lives.
In fact, he lights up the whole house.
But one of these days, we're going to explain to him that switches that turn on the lights can also be used to turn them off.
Andrew's my train -hunting buddy.
He's the guy who makes me get lots of exercise by walking golf courses for hours, and my
fellow explorer on back roads of North Idaho, and in that same vein, he's a great traveler,
and we've seen a lot of the country, the three of us, Barbara and Andrew and I together, and we look
forward to some more road trips together.
Most of you have heard that term, it takes a village.
Well, I don't really agree with that, but I do know that it's taken all three of us to get Andrew to
the point where he is today.
He's also been blessed by the programs and the people in this church, and for that, we're very appreciative.
Also, he had the good fortune to discover golf at an early age, and he
was able to be on the Sandpoint High School golf team for all four years.
We are grateful to those team members there and those coaches, because they have really helped Andrew to
mature.
Andrew has faced and will continue to face a lot of challenges and difficulties
in his life, but John and Katie and I have been so blessed to be
his family, and we are so proud of the young man he has become.
Andrew will officially graduate this next Friday from Sandpoint High School, and as a symbol of the
diploma he will get at that time, his mom has a presentation.
You choose the humble and raise them high You choose the
weak and make them strong.
You heal our brokenness inside And
give us life.
What if you could go back and relive One day of your life all over again And
unmake the mistake That left you a million miles away From the you
you once knew.
Now yesterday's shame Keeps saying that you'll never get back On track.
But what if I told you You're one step away from surrender.
One step away.
It doesn't matter how far Mercy's love's
never meant a lost cause.
You're shame.
Lay it down.
Leave your curse in the past.
Cause you know that you can't go back.
On track.
Your best life up ahead now.
You're one step away.
Lay down, lay down your old chains.
Come now and take up your new name.
This love is made.
Your best step away.
Your best life.
Up ahead now.
You're just one step away.
It feels like it went that fast.
Clara, you're our oldest.
Our first one to take us through this process.
And you, from an early age, you've shown the ability to dream big and
to work hard to make your dreams come true.
At age four, you decided to build a tree house and grabbed every stick and scrap of wood you can
find and nailed it together.
At nine, you decided to build a zip line with a rope and
wire and a ladder and a tree.
And through all that, you showed the wisdom by encouraging your sister to be the test pilot.
And we're just proud of you for
all you've done.
I know this seems rather anticlimactic to you.
You've been doing dual credit for the last two years.
So you've been doing college classes.
You've achieved, what, 60 hours of credit?
And you'll be starting nursing this fall at NIC.
So this is kind of two years too late or two years too early.
But you've done some amazing things.
We're proud of you.
Pauline, my daughter, my gifted daughter.
It's amazing we're here today, isn't it?
About three years ago, I remember getting a call from your mother in distress with homeschooling.
And you guys were having a standoff.
I got home real late that night.
And I think it was over eight hours, no drinking, no eating, no bathroom breaks.
Your mom won, and we're here today.
And I'd just like to say congratulations.
That was a battle over math.
It was unbelievable.
And I didn't know he was going to say that.
I am so nervous.
Oh, my gosh.
There's so many things I'd love to say about Aline, but about her life and all the details
of homeschooling and stuff like that.
But I'm too nervous, and I'll start crying.
So I wrote down something that I just want to share to Aline.
And hopefully, everybody will listen because it applies to everybody.
But this is what I wrote.
To our sweet Aline, we are so proud of the godly woman you are and that you are still learning to be.
We ask that every morning when you wake up, you praise our Lord and Savior.
During your day, may you seek him and draw near to his will.
In times of trouble, we ask that you turn to our Heavenly Father for forgiveness, for strength, for
courage, and that you will ask him to renew your spirit.
Continue to grow your relationship with him.
Remember that his holy word is living water.
It is life, and continue to study it.
No matter what you do, do it all to the glory of God.
Do not waver, stand strong, and hold to his truth.
Do not get lost in the things of this world, for this is not our home.
Look forward to his return, for he draws near.
Look and seek him always.
And please remember who you are and that we love you.
The Great Protector.
Is that what I'm supposed to be?
What if all this counts for nothing?
Everything I thought I'd be.
What if by the time I realize It's too far behind to see?
70 mil projector.
I can show you everything.
My way to glory.
Where the show won't ever end.
And the encore lasts forever.
And it's time with you to spend.
Spending the years together.
Growing older every.
I feel at home when you say again
I hope the encore.
Now it's time for us to.
And it's sublime with you, my friend.
It still feels
I'll do the same as you, I'll try and hold it up.
Soon I hope, or as soon as I'm old enough.
I've
been searching for an answer Always
just out of reach Blood on the floor
Side I
hear
my fat
Together My
fat
Say that I
But the sound Was the pain In
my full bed.
I hear my fat.
Hear my fat
Fat Together Fat.
Well, as you can tell from the slideshow, one of the most pressing difficulties with homeschooling Liam was
getting him to stay awake long enough to do school.
And Liam, apart from the course of study that your mom laid out for you each and every year, you managed to
achieve studying other subjects and other things that were far more interesting.
Sometimes those things would compete with what your mom laid out for you.
But you managed to get all of that done.
And Liam has been able over the last few years to teach himself how to play instruments like a guitar, build a
computer.
And then you saw in the slideshow the Miata that he has, and has been his project for the last several months.
He's stripped the engine out of that and torn it all apart and is rebuilding that.
Those are skills and abilities that I do not have and so I could not have taught him how to do any of that.
And it is going to be interesting for your mom and I to see how the Lord uses those skills and abilities which he has given to you
to glorify him.
So my charge is the same.
Do all that you do for the glory of God, the big things and the small things, and live your life for his glory and for his sake.
And you will be a life well lived.
Congratulations on the end of high school.
This marks the end of an era for us as well because we are done homeschooling.
So that's it.
Congratulations.
You get to go after a professional speaker.
So thanks whoever did the lineup.
Thank you for helping Elise as well.
Deidre, it's been great.
We've been super busy and you've been...
I can't thank you enough.
God sent it as a good word.
I just want to talk to my daughter about a couple of the character traits that
I've been thinking about this week and some things that I admire about you and I hope you grow
in continuing.
You're truthful.
When you know something's right, you don't back down.
You keep pressing forward and I like that kind of tenacity and I appreciate it.
When you speak the truth, you don't do it to build your own ego and that's kind of rare.
You know, a lot of times people want to build up themselves when they're doing the right thing and I just see you doing it.
So I appreciate that.
You got a great sense of humor.
You can laugh at yourself when you do something dense.
You own it.
You post it.
Make sure everybody else knows what you did.
So you can laugh at yourself.
You have a great laugh, a wonderful snort.
I appreciate it.
You're a deep thinker.
You always have been.
We have three older boys and then we have Elise and even as a
little girl at the dinner table, the boys would be jibber jabber back and forth constantly doing the
wheel.
She'd just sit there and listen the whole time and just absorb things.
So she thinks deeply about things.
She uses this to discern truth.
I believe that this helps her make good decisions and when she makes a decision,
she is decisive.
So she wants a pickup truck, get a pickup truck.
No matter what mama says, she wants her four -wheel drive.
And I'm all for that.
Independent, you're not a follower.
It's one of those character traits that is very rare, especially during teenage years.
You kind of just went your own path from going from homeschool to public
school, a difficult thing, but to jump right into cheer, I mean, you know,
double tough, right?
Tight -knit group of people try to get into, so I just hold you up for that.
And then faith.
You have faith in your own abilities, like I said, jumping into cheer, but also I see you seeking faith
in the Lord.
And I enjoy seeing you do that.
Love you, babe.
I think he stole my phone and stole my notes.
I totally concur with everything he just said.
And we did not talk about what we were going to say.
No.
But I did want to say a couple other things.
After three boys, I did not believe I could possibly have a girl, and I'm so glad I do.
She's probably my closest friend, and I trust her, and I
admire her, and I respect her.
She did sit and listen at the table.
I was going to say that.
And she would observe and analyze and try to not do all the wrong things her brothers did.
But she was the youngest to hop on a bike and hop on skis, and she saw something, and she went
for it.
And like her dad said, no matter what I said about a truck,
she knows how to make good decisions.
And I respect you and believe in you and admire you, and
I love you.
That's it.
I guess you get this.
Isn't time to love.
Or time to kill.
Everything.
Turn, turn.
Isn't time
To every.
The plastic bag.
Wanting to start again Feels so.
Paper thin Like a house of cards One blow from caving in Do you ever
Seems to hear a thing.
Do you know that there's Still a chance for you Cause there's a spark in you.
You just gotta ignite The light And let
it shine Just own the night.
The
space
You're original Cannot be replaced.
If you only knew What the future holds.
After a hurricane Comes a rainbow.
Maybe a reason why All the doors are closed So you could open one That leads
you to the perfect road.
Like a lightning bolt Your heart will glow And when it's time you'll know.
You just gotta ignite The light And
let it shine Just own the
night.
So Amy.
Words that I thought of that describe Amy are creativity, color, enthusiasm,
curiosity, and she's also gentle, caring, and loving.
So Amy was our tomboy in a princess dress.
She approaches life with her whole heart, and I can best describe Amy by
describing to you a scene that Nick and I witnessed many times over the years.
So picture Amy, eight or nine years old, playing outside, and she's wearing a colorful skirt.
The more colors in it, the better.
And she's also wearing a brightly colored shirt, which may or may not match her skirt.
In her hair is a flower or ribbons or a scarf, which are also colorful.
It doesn't matter if any of these items of clothing match, only that there's as many colors as possible, and to
Amy's mind that they're beautiful.
So Amy, dressed in this colorful, beautiful outfit, is outside running, singing, dancing, and twirling.
So that's Amy.
Years later, Amy told me that she believed that if she sang and danced, birds would come and land on her like
Cinderella in the movie.
So she said, Mom, Disney lied to me.
So Amy approaches learning with her whole heart, too.
So anything she's interested in, she wants to know all about it, and often she will read every book in the local library
about that subject.
But most important, Amy has loved Jesus from a young age, and we have just been so blessed to see that love
blossom and deepen over the years.
So Amy, tonight, as we celebrate your graduation from high school, and as you officially move from child to young
adult, I just want to leave you with this verse, which I pray will continue to guide you throughout your life.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.
We love you and are so proud of you.
All right, will you join with me as we close evening in prayer?
Father, you are the sovereign God, and our times are in your hands, and in your book was written all of our days before there was yet one of them.
And you, being the sovereign God, have a right to dispose of all of your creatures as you see fit, and we would just pray and ask that you
would use the lives of these graduates here tonight to honor and glorify you in all that they do, in
big things and in small things.
May they seek your honor, seek your majesty, seek your glory, and your praise, and live their lives in
service to the great King, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we commit them to you, and in whose name we
pray.
Amen.
Well, this is our graduation ceremony, and you are the graduates, and you have graduated, so you can now move your tassel.
And I present to you the Kootenai Community Church graduating class of 2021.
Give them a round of applause.
It's time to
leave my doubt behind See,
I know what's going on inside I believe in something way beyond myself Like the
wind that moves the leaves Won't you move me to my knees
All right, we do have some refreshments on the table back here, so please feel free to hang around and enjoy those.
And that concludes our service.
Thank you for coming.
♪ I believe in something way beyond myself ♪.
And
the rest, our friends, we've forgotten
how to inspire
Those who fall to rise again Oh my God, you built this
world to shake You still love me in a personal way And it's
time to leave my doubt behind