Being a college student has really opened my eyes to how everyone experiences things differently. It’s not that I’ve been naive nor did I ever think that everyone had similar and “perfect” lives like me, but being a college student really opens your eyes to the diversity of the world. Most people come to meet and accept Christ through an aha! moment or because they are at the lowest point of their life and have their eyes opened to all that he can do. As someone who grew up in the church, I never really had this, and this, this is one thing that I’ve come to realize.
As we grow up, we have little traditions or do things with our family that just are, but we don’t really think much about. This was how my relationship with Jesus was. Going to church, learning about him at school, occasionally accepting him and saying “I want this”; this was my “relationship” with Jesus. I believed he was real and that I wanted everything he had to offer, but I chose to just kind of ignore it. I didn’t want to take the time to really get to know him or go to church on Sunday’s because I never got to sleep in. I blatantly ignored him until I came to college and realized that I needed to stop avoiding this and figure it out. God placed a few people in my life, knowing what I needed, and introduced me to the ministry Young Life. Because of this, I decided to finally chase after Christ and put some effort into the relationship. As I get to know more and more people who have a relationship with Jesus, it’s crazy to see how something that was always a part of me growing up, was something that took me nearly 19 years to accept.
As I quickly grew in my relationship and spent a lot of my free time being poured into by others, I started to realize how lost without Christ people are. Living with someone who doesn’t love Christ has been hard because I can see how broken they are, and all I want to do is show them that things could be different, but it’s hard when they won’t even give it a chance. Seeing how broken everyone is, and understanding how broken I used to be, makes me want to spread the good news and be the light for others.
To be a light to others, God has called me to be a high school Young Life leader. The process of trying to figure out whether this was what I was meant to be doing was really hard and stressful, but through this, God was teaching me to trust. God laid it on my heart that I should go on a mission trip this summer. This was something I had always wanted to do but had never really put much thought or effort into it. I spent the first few days of my spring break just looking at different opportunities when I came across the World Race Semesters page. As I looked at the different trips, I was overwhelmed and instantly wanted to cry. I knew that this was how I was supposed to be spending my summer.
Through lots of prayer and trust, God has led me to lead high school kids and is sending me to another country to show the lost who he is. It’s insane to watch how everything he does is perfect. When choosing a trip, I knew I wanted to go to Latin America because I am minoring in Spanish and want to become fluent. That narrowed down my choices, but looking at the different options, Ecuador was perfect and there really wasn’t any other choice but that one. Everything we’re doing there is stuff that God breaks my heart for.
These last few months God has taught me to trust that his plan is perfect and that everything he wants me to do is all to glorify him and to teach me things that I need to understand. Thanks for reading my blog and for joining me on my journey! I appreciate all of the love and support <3
