I feel like I have been getting really nostalgic lately. I keep hearing about people’s little siblings who are coming to Madison, and talking about graduation, and reaching into my past as I’m on this support raising journey.
I sort of laugh when I think of myself as a freshman in college. I came in off of a pretty descent high school experience; I got good grades, I was captain of the soccer team, I was going to arguably the best college in the world (maybe slightly biased). It seemed like I had the world at my fingertips. But then college actually started. I quickly got sucked into the “college experience”, spending Friday and Saturday nights out with my “friends”. Things quickly got out of hand, and by the end of the year if you had looked up “hot mess” in the dictionary, you would have seen my picture right next to it. After all of the pressures I felt at high school, it felt so good to be on my own, making my own choices, in charge of my own future.
Yet with all this freedom, I woke up each Saturday and Sunday morning filled with regret and shame towards what had happened the night before. But even though I had forgotten about the Lord, he hadn’t forgotten about me. The Lord gave me the greatest blessing in the form of a girl on my floor. She challenged me to think about my faith, and invited me to join the Bible study she was in for my sophomore year. There I met the greatest group of women. Regardless of what was happening in their lives, they remained constant, and I could sense a peace and security within them that I so desperately desired. I didn’t want to find my worth in grades or athletics or guys thinking I was attractive anymore. I wanted Jesus.
The Lord used these women to break me and piece me back together. Through them, I learned that I am a sinner. Seeking after success and guys and partying will never fulfill me. Only the Lord can do that. I will never be good enough to earn my way to heaven. But the Lord loves me so much that he was willing to send his son Jesus to live and die on this earth. Jesus died for my sins, and because of him I am able to live, forgiven of my sins and drowning in grace.
Once I learned these things, once I really heard them, I knew that I needed that. I needed to accept Jesus into my heart, to believe that he is the way; the only way.
Since that time, I have been on the craziest, most fulfilling adventure. I still struggle with feeling a sense of worth, with needing to do things in order to be accepted or loved, but the Lord is growing me. I look back on the hot mess from freshman year, and it feels like a different life. I am not the person I was then, and I am so thankful for that. If you had told me at the beginning of freshman year that I would be going on the World Race after I graduated, I probably would have laughed in your face. But now, I couldn’t be happier to be doing the Lord’s work in this way.
