The Last Time

Posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 4:19 pm

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The image that you see is Josiah’s last cross country race of his high school career.  It made me think of the few times in my scholastic life when I was involved in things that I loved.  I was never in any kind of athletic sports (I know that is very surprising for those of you that know me).  My high school was a very small Christian school and there were no sports teams.  The only thing that I ever really did well in school was debate.

I really, really loved debate in college.  It was without a doubt the most fulfilling and rewarding (not to mention academically helpful) thing that I did in college.  It was also the only thing that Bob Jones allowed students to participate in against other schools.  All other competition was intra-mural.  We were allowed to miss class, ride the bus off campus, stay in hotels, watch TV, and even talk to students of the opposite sex after six in the evening.  All of these things were great luxuries to us and we appreciated them like gold.

But this wasn’t the only reason that I loved debate.  I loved going on trips to a much larger school and spending all day Saturday in the library doing research.  I loved spending countless hours putting that research into formats so that I could access it when I needed it during a debate round.  I loved thinking of arguments and counter arguments.  I felt like I had been born for this.

And then, in my senior year, we came to the last tournament.  It was at The Citadel as I remember.  I wanted very badly to win that tournament as I and my partner had won others.  As it turned out, I didn’t win; we didn’t even “break” into the quarter-finals.  It was a shameful way to go out.  I remember riding back to the campus feeling like I had a hole in my gut.  Like there was something gone that I would never be able to get back.

I learned though that debate had prepared me for other things that the Lord had in store for me.  I still love doing research, and I do a lot of it in my job as a professor.  I still love looking carefully at arguments and counter-arguments; I do a lot of that in my job as well.  My research skills stood me very well in my Ph.D. studies. I have never been sorry for the skills I learned at Bob Jones University at the feet of Dr. Dewitt Jones.  It was a great time and even though it came to an end.  It was still great.

We live in a world in which things end.  In some way that makes us appreciate them even more.  Value the time that you have now; this is not a dress rehearsal.

Onward . .

SamLam