Few can appreciate the "finality" of a high school college graduation as well as those who have such as ever receding memories. Certainly, few who stand on stage with diploma in hand waiting to throw their caps into the air in uproarious celebration can really gasp the "benchmark" significance of their graduation. From that time forth, they can never retreat to the safety and predictability of their former life. Few want to, but even if they want to cling to the known, it is past.

Graduation is a launching. The shore must be left behind. Uncharted waters are ahead. That can be both exciting and frightening. No guarantees for success are available. Some sink and some swim. Some reach the distant shore, some do not. More than anything else, God is the deciding factor in a life.

"From this time forth...."  Fitting words from the Psalms for graduations and others who would go with God. "The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore" (Psalms 12:5-8).