Thursday September 6th was when the college
experience really started for me. Sure, I had been on campus for almost three
weeks, but this was when it got hard. Like the
get-on-a-plane-and-never-look-back hard. But I should pause for a second with
how it all started.
Thursday mornings on campus are chapel mornings and this morning
happened to be the ASB Chapel, and they ended it by having us write on
notecards what God was really laying on our hearts for this year. I distinctly
remember hearing him say, “Trust me.” I figured I could totally do that. I
mean, I trusted him in my college decision which landed me in California,
approximately 1135.29 miles from my family and friends. But who’s counting? I
just got a little teary eyed, nothing major, and walked out.
I called my mom because I had some time before my class
started to find out that my grandma was sick, but no big deal. My mom was on
her way to take her to the doctor. People get sick, and that’s OK, I wasn’t in
a panic. But, I was finally getting homesick. I realized this wasn’t camp or
CIY, I wasn’t going home. The first moment it hit me was the first night my
dorm had ants, like hundreds of them. I got up in the middle of the night to
check and see what was going on and thought, “It’s no big deal, I’ll be going
home soon,” basically the thought that crosses my mind every time something
goes wrong at camp. Needless to say, I woke up from that reality rather
quickly.
Back to my grandma, things went from the doctor's office, to the
emergency room, to hospital admittance, to the possibility of cancer, to
finding out there’s no cancer(Thank you Lord). I went through all of this in three weeks. It
hit before I had even been here one month and I didn’t even know what to do.
This isn’t how most kids imagine tackling their first two months away from
home, but it happened. I remember telling my friends, “I can’t wait to get
through a full 24 hours without crying.” I’m sure people expected me to be a
wreck, but I was so ready for a new adventure that I didn’t expect to cry so
much!
Rather than going with plan A, get-on-a-plane-and-never-look-back,
I went with a better plan, truly trusting God. I probably said once an hour, at
least, “OK God, this is me trusting you, but I don’t like it one bit.”
Eventually, I grew to willingly trust God, and not grumble, but it wasn’t easy.
God didn’t abandon me at all. I received multiple text messages, Facebook
messages, and phone calls during that time from people who did and didn’t know
what was going on being constant sources of encouragement. I began to develop
my Hope community because I knew, and my mom knew, and God knew I wouldn’t be
able to handle it all on my own.
I’m continually reminded that I don’t have to handle things
alone, that it isn’t supposed to be easy, and that God is good even when life
is a little rough.
And I’m pretty sure crying is OK.
