Does it have to end?
By Jordan Volk
During my senior year of college, I kept returning to this image of someone digging their heels into the dirt, resisting with everything they had, yet still being pushed forward by some sort of force. That was how graduation felt; something that continued to creep closer despite my best efforts to hold it off. I loved my college experience and didn’t want it to end. I wanted to share a home with my best friends forever, to walk around campus and run into familiar faces, to moped to class everyday (maybe I can start riding one to work?).
I find myself in that same posture now, wanting to do anything I can to prevent Fellows from coming to a close. I love my fellow Fellows. I love my host family. I love the familiarity of my job. Yet, just as I did my senior year, I find myself helpless to actually do anything to make time slow down.
It’s funny to sit with that realization. The very future I once resisted has become the life I now wish I could hold onto a little longer.
This has served as a reminder to me this year. I did not want college to end because I cherished my life so deeply that I could hardly imagine it getting any better. And once again, I don’t want Fellows to end, because how could it get better? Yet God was abundantly generous to me in college, and He has been abundantly generous to me this year. I trust that He will continue to do so in the next season of my life, whether or not I am a Fellow.
I believe a primary reason I am sad to see Fellows come to a close is the friendships I have formed this year. As I consider this, I’ve reflected on a quote from The Four Loves, in which C.S. Lewis writes:
“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”
It is no doubt that God has intentioned orchestrated our Fellows class to have spent the past year together. There are people in my Fellows class that, had it not been for this year, we might never have crossed paths. We’re from different cities, went to different colleges, have different interests, and yet, God looked at the 14 of us and saw fit for us to spend this formative year alongside one another.
I am so grateful that this year has brought me friendships that make the changing of seasons so bittersweet.
Jordan Volk is a member of the Capital Fellows class of 2025-26. She is from Dallas, TX, and is a graduate of Baylor University. This year, she is working in the U.S. Senate on Capitol Hill.
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About Capital Fellows. Capital Fellows is an advanced leadership and discipleship program for recent college graduates. Through graduate courses, a paid internship, one-on-one mentoring, and many leadership and community service opportunities, fellows develop and apply their gifts in real-world situations while learning to integrate a Christian worldview into all areas of life. Capital Fellows is a unique opportunity to live and work in the Washington DC area and to be an active member of a supportive community that seeks to serve the city with the love of Christ. It is also a unique opportunity to get hands-on experience in the workplace while deeply exploring God’s design for us as workers and contributors to human flourishing.
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The Capital Fellows are digging into deep aspects of story in this season in Dr. Bill Clark’s class. Questions like: Who am I? Where am I from? How do I make sense of my story in the larger story of the Gospel and the world? These can be hard things to process. Please pray that the Fellows will sense God's deep, deep love for them as they venture into these tender areas. Please pray that the Fellows would serve and support each other well as they explore these things together. Ultimately, may they find themselves deeply rooted in Christ and in the community of His people, the Church.
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