She sat across from me in the food court as I scarfed down a Chick-fil-A breakfast biscuit and squeezed in words of anxiety between bites. I was a college freshman stressing about my spring final exams and wishing the week was already over. My college mentor offered to meet me for breakfast before an exam since it was the only free time I had in my busy study schedule before I left for the summer. She kindly listened as I explained the woes of each one of my classes and worried that I wouldn’t make it through till next week. Then she asked me the strangest question, “Did you survive your fall final exams?”
I thought back to that week five months ago and honestly couldn’t remember much. I knew I had been stressed, especially since it was my first finals week as a college student. Yet I had turned in every paper and passed every test (with only one all-nighter under my belt). “Yes, I made it through, and I even got the GPA I was hoping for,” I replied.
“Finals week is just a season of your life,” she wisely admonished me. “The pressure you’re feeling right now will not last forever. In fact, you probably won’t remember how you feel five years from now, and maybe not even by next semester’s finals.”
Though college finals week seems like a trivial example now, my mentor was teaching me an important lesson in spiritual maturity. Just as the weather changes from summer to fall to winter to spring, we will walk through various seasons in life. Finals week seemed overwhelming to 19-year-old me, but I have faced much harder seasons in newlywed life, newborn days, family illness, job transitions, and more. However, that lesson from my college mentor has stayed with me: this is just a season.
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