It’s hard to believe my high school chapter was coming to a close four years ago. Though I was excited for college, my heart ached at the thought of leaving four incredible years behind. Every season of my life since then has had the same sort of satisfied sadness attached to it. Now, facing my final semester at UW-Whitewater, I’m starting to reflect on the last four years; I had the ultimate experience.
In my four years, I’ve had more fun than I ever could have imagined. I had one long-term and many short-term relationships, spent my fair share of nights shelling out $5 to drink stale beer in a dirty basement, went late-night swimming in the fountain downtown, ordered enough pizzas to have the delivery boy remember my name, spent endless nights taking drink orders and cleaning the bar, spent a year living in my sorority house, crossed things off my bucket list, met my best friends, taken cross-country road-trips, visited over 20 states, landed my dream job, discovered my passions, advocated for what I believe in, made mistakes, experienced profound loss, gotten my heart broken, been embarrassed, hated myself at times, and so much more.
I spent a lot of my time here wishing I was anywhere else. I’d too often look at my life and think of all the things I’d rather be doing. To me, Wisconsin was so boring and flat. (not just geographically.) I knew I was made for so much more and I felt antsy and uncomfortable waiting around to be old enough or educated enough to do what I love.
But somewhere along the way, I started to love what I was doing. No, I wasn’t ministering to the poor and sick. I wasn’t traveling around the world and experiencing indigenous cultures. But I was ministering to my friends when they needed me. I was traveling around the country and learning to see God’s beauty in every broken community. I wasn’t saving anyone—I was being saved.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped dressing in a way that made me feel bad about my body. Somewhere along the way, I shed organizations and people who made me feel bad about myself. Somewhere along the way, I traded in the red solo cup of cheap beer for a pink mug filled with green tea and I traded in late nights partying for late nights reading and running. Somewhere along the way, I learned what I love by first learning what I don’t.
I am so thankful for my college experience. I’m leaving Whitewater with my bridesmaids (because you need bridesmaids before a husband, right?), my lessons, my passions, and most importantly: a direction.
Though God and my relationship with Him has always been important to me, I’ve found that, somewhere along the way, it’s become the most important thing. It didn’t happen overnight. It happened in a series of moments. Moments like standing atop a bridge in Vermont and praying for reconciliation. And the time a teenager was reduced to tears on top of a mountain in West Virginia saying that, for the first time, he believed in a God that loved him. Moments spent lost in worship, or sitting in Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Non-Denominational, and so many other services and realizing one thing:
We all love the same God, and the same God loves all of us.
(no matter how we show it.)
I’ve learned to be so much more accepting of people. A relationship with God is a two-party (and only two-party) relationship. And like any relationship, it will falter. It will be difficult at times. There will be anger and tears. But unlike so many of the relationships I’ve experienced in the last four years, there’s one fundamental difference in my relationship with God:
It will never fail. And He will never stop loving me.
So today I’m thankful. Thankful for the lessons, the hard times, the good memories, the relationships, and the growth that have come out of this season of life. The most important lesson, I think, that I’ve learned, is that growth is gradual and that change is inevitable. If I were to meet my 18-year-old self today, I don’t think we’d recognize each other. And that’s okay. Because who I am driving out of Whitewater is a stronger, more confident, more faithful woman than was the nervous, shy, (slightly more) crazy 18 year old who drove here four years ago.
Then, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or who I want to be. Now, I know exactly where I want my life to go and who God created me to be. There was never a conscious decision made to live a healthier, happier life. There was never a moment of clarity in which I began to think and eventually live differently. There was just the constant tug at my heart, from a God that loves me, to become the masterpiece He has in mind. As I enter this new season of life, The World Race, I’m met with the familiar sadness of leaving something beautiful behind. But more importantly, I’m met with the overwhelming sense of peace that the World Race is exactly what God has had planned for me all along.
