Music Monday: “Graduation Song” by Elizabeth Waltz

Music Monday: “Graduation Song” by Elizabeth Waltz

By Debbie Waltz

If you’ve followed me long enough, you can probably tell I’m a proud aunt. Not only are my nieces beautiful, but they have characters to match. They’ve been empathetic to my struggles of living with a disability and being accepted by society. They are doing their academics beautifully (Rebekah is a Sophomore in high school and Elizabeth is a freshman in college) and doing their best to remain independent by making jobs in their spare time. Can you believe that? Rebekah is a lifeguard at the community pool and Elizabeth does school tours on campus.

if that isn’t enough, Elizabeth takes part in a lot of extracurricular activities such as choir and leading on some worship nights. She also volunteers whenever she can, playing piano at a nearby church. But her musical talent doesn’t stop there; Elizabeth taught herself how to play many instruments, including the guitar and the ukulele. This urge to never stop learning must run in the family though, because my brother virtually taught himself to play the piano- even composing a song for Carrie when he proposed.

Imagine our surprise and delight when Elizabeth told us that a friend of hers was going to produce a song she wrote. Now I realize Elizabeth was one for writing in notebooks when she was younger, but I always thought she would be a writer later on in life. Like me, she always held her creative works close to her heart and didn’t show them to anyone until they were ready.

She’s been lucky to find her lifelong friends during her high school experience; she still keeps in contact with them today. Like my friends in college, she treasures each of them with all of her heart. They’ve helped her grow, teaching her lessons about the value of friendship that she could have only learned by experience. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 reminds us, “Two are better than one, because they have good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three is not quickly broken.” Proverbs 19, also tells us to “Listen to advice and accept discipline, and in the end you will be counted among the wise.” (v. 20)

Of course, we all remember the most famous verse about friendship in John 15:13, which says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends .” (Verse 13). This is referring to the Lord’s ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross, but I have no doubt my friends or Elizabeth’s would do whatever possible for us.

Elizabeth’s song, “Graduation Song” attempts to express the sorrow at leaving her friends behind, but the longing to spread her wings and fly. Check it out here: