When my little brother Andrew was in elementary school and I in junior high I used to say, “Oh Andrew — just wait til you get here. Junior High is great!”

Four years later, “Andrew, junior high is nothing… High school is the best!”

Approximately four years later, “You will LOVE college. You can skip classes if you want, no one tells you that you have to be in school. College life is great!”

I think it was at this point that Andrew exploded and told me that I always said “the next step” was the best. He was right. Four years younger meant he experienced everything after me… It’s only now that I’m in the sometimes-boring adult world that I turn around and tell him to enjoy the college years, that these are years of freedom and fun and learning that you’ll probably never experience after graduation. The truth of the matter is that each stage of life is great and wonderful, each day meant to be experienced and enjoyed because it is where God has placed us.

As I eagerly look forward to the next stage of my life and become increasingly impatient with my current status, I find great comfort in this reminder: “The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived — not always looked forward to as though the ‘real’ living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.” (Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman)