On [my last semester of] Seminary and Stress.

Maybe when I'm done with school we'll find out what this table actually looks like! :)

I should be working on a paper right now: the last research paper of my educational career (unless someday I decide to get my doctorate or something crazy like that).

It’s November, which means I’m a few days into my last full month of my master’s degree.

And soon, I'll be Master Kelly.

Yes, you are free to call me that.

But really, why is it that I feel like I know less now than I did when this all started almost two and a half years ago? 

Graduating from high school creates the illusion that the world is an oyster; endless possibilities; able to do anything the mind is set to do.

College reveals that life isn’t so simple, but after four years, a feeling of accomplishment sets in. Like, well, if I could tackle that undertaking—anything else life throws at me couldn't be too bad.

And then graduate school breaks us, especially seminary. 

I saw God in ways I’d never seen before.

I learned things that I probably should have known all along—especially as a pastor’s kid that grew up in church. With each lecture, chapel, trip across the world, and conversation, all the presumptions of knowing it all, of having somehow arrived, were stripped away. 

I feel more like Kelly, but more like I have no idea what everything is supposed to look like. 

I feel like I've learned so much, but that I'm aware of how much I don't know. 

But then it's all simmered down back to the basics: love God, love people. 

We make it so complicated, while we are busy adding degrees to the end of our names, but Jesus already told us what it's all about. 

Loving.