Category Archives: Musings of the Mind

When you realize it’s not what you thought

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I’ve wanted to go to college every since I remember. I remember my parents recalling memories from their college experience. I remember my mom saying, “college was the best time of my life.” I remember people saying it’s the only time you’re in walking distance from all your friends. I remember hearing that there are endless things to do, see, and learn. I remember a teacher telling me, “get to college and stay there for as long as you can.” I remember eagerly awaiting this once-in-a-lifetime experience where I’d be surrounded by a community. I remember expecting to be surrounded by people with ideas and passions.

Despite all my eagerness,  or perhaps because of it, I was not prepared for what awaited me.

College is the most negative environment I have ever been in. I’d say 75% of what I hear people say is some kind of complaint. Another 20% is about a party or club. I haven’t met a single passionate person here. Perhaps because of the “get to college and stay there” attitude teenagers going to college are given all the freedom of adulthood yet don’t assume the responsibility of adulthood. Or maybe this generation of adults can’t get past the party stage in life.

I thought college would be a time of shared ideas. But it’s a time of memorizing various bits of information. I haven’t even found anyone interested in talking about what was learned in class. I thought college would be organized and people would help you succeed. But instead they just tell you all the things you should do: get a job in your field, volunteer, join at least two clubs, take on a leadership position in an organization, attend weekend seminars and guest lecturers, do all your homework on time, read chapters before coming to class. Oh yeah, and having a social life is imperative to success. I’m not sure when they think anyone has free time to fit in social activities, but I guess it must somewhere.

I’ve heard of lots of kids who go away to college and then quit for various reasons. I’m definitely not a quitter, so that has never crossed my mind. I’ve just come to a cold realization that college is not going to be the best time of my life. At this point in time, college sucks 100%. The classes are actually the best part. That and having a gym so close. The end of last semester when relatives and friends would ask how college was going my generic response was, “It’s a thing. I’m doing it.” What else could I say?

I guess what scares me is that I’ve always wanted the next stage in my life. I’ve always been unsatisfied with where I was at in life. What if I’m never happy where I’m at? What if nothing will satisfy ever?

Being a Christian, this is where I would recognize that of course nothing on earth will satisfy. This is where I turn to God. Yet no comfort is there. I read my Bible, write in my journal, read spiritual books, pray, and still I find no peace, peace I believe and know to be real. Yet it eludes me.

I don’t know why God led me here. I don’t know why this has to be so incredibly hard. But I will trust this is where He wants me. I will trust this is in His plan.

I will trust this pain somehow will be used for good. I will praise Him despite my loneliness and longing.

I will turn to him even if I do not feel Him there.

I will sing to Him even when surrender is crushing.

I will pray to Him even when He does not answer.

And I will believe that He is holding His tired, scared, broken daughter through every trial he puts me through.

College is not what I thought. But God is bigger and better than anything I could dream or imagine.

Love Can’t Save You

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Listening to Gungor spurred an interesting discussion at my house over the weekend. My family and I were listening to “White Man” after my parents’ pastor had made some very good political comments in his sermon that morning. The whole song is fantastic, but the relevant part for this post is the chorus and bridge:

But God is love, God is love, and He loves everyone
God is love, God is love, and He loves everyone

Atheists and Charlatans and Communists and Lesbians
And even old Pat Robertson, oh God He loves us all
Catholic or Protestant, Terrorist or President
Everybody, everybody, love, love, love, love, love

So good. It’s not our place to judge, condemn, and prove wrong. We are meant to love and show them we are Christians by our love. I feel like lots of people forget that God is love and instead portray a God of jerks. But this is where the conversation got interesting. My dad made a particularly good comment, “That’s all good, but some people swing too far the other way and make love their god. God is love. Not love is god.”

God is love. Not love is god.

Love does not mean enabling and supporting everything a person wants to do, say, or believe. Love is caring enough about another person to turn them towards the face of Jesus. Let me be clear. I do not mean bashing them over the head with the bible. As believers, we have a duty to show people the only one who can save them. Jesus. Our job is not to tell them they are okay just the way they are (sin and all), but rather to show them the one who can redeem who they are despite sin. Love can’t save anyone. Only God can. Welcome people with open arms but realize that transformation has to take place. Tell them they are loved, but don’t forget that we all are sinners. We all need redemption. We all need a savior.

Love is recognizing that Jesus is the only one who can save. So lead people to God through love and allow Him to do what he does best.

Dish Duty

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I thinks it’s easy to go online and see beautiful pictures of perfect people on mountain tops. Or hear stories of couples going on grand adventures. I think almost everyone wants an adventure in one way or another. I am one of those people. Or so I thought.

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I just got back from Adventure Kamp. I flew a plane, went scuba diving, rappelled kids off a 300 foot bluff, taught countless survival classes, built a water proof shelter out of sticks, leaves and vine, killed, cleaned, and cooked a rabbit, hiked in rain, sun, cold, and hot, found my way with a compass, prepared devos and tried my best to counsel the great kids I had, slept in a hammock 33 nights of the summer, saw the milky way, watched 35 shooting stars during my fire watch at 2 in the morning, and killed a copper head. Six hours of sleep a night, cooking, taking photo and video, driving, teaching, and counseling. It a summer of firsts. First time in a small plane. First time cliff bluffing. First time being a counselor. First time navigating an airport. First time camping. First time backpacking.

And yet, it all felt very unspectacular. It wasn’t that it was because it was my job or that I was overtired (although both would have been true). No, it was something else. How could I go on such wonderful adventures and it feel so ordinary? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had the wrong idea about what adventure meant.

~an unusual and exciting experience or activity~

~to engage in hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory~

After this summer I realized I could go everywhere, do everything, learn everything, be everything I wanted to be, but still be empty. This summer, I went on journey. An exploration. And what I discovered? I really need community. People to experience life with. People to share struggles with. People to take in a moment with. To laugh with and cry with. The more I thought about it, I’ve had adventure upon adventure washing dishes with my small group back home. Or explore my home town with my besties.

Yes, I long for adventure, but even deeper than that, I long for connection. And I’d rather share a mundane life with people than have the grandest of adventures alone. I hope to make life my adventure. No matter where I am or what I’m doing. So here’s to life. And here’s to loving people.

 

The power of being specific

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Two days left at camp. It’s been a very eventful 67 days. I’m going to level with you. I didn’t want to come. It often seems like I really REALLY don’t want to do something that turns out to shape my life. It was that way when I went to Hallstrom. I did not want to try out for that first play. And now I can’t imagine how my life would have been if I hadn’t have gone. Anyway, God has a way of closing all other doors and pushing me through one — or just having my mother force me through. I applied for several other jobs and didn’t hear a word from any until I applied (very half-heartedly, I must say) for Lake Geneva Youth Camp. Then after applying for LGYC, I got two calls back from other companies. I even had an interview with the Girl Scouts. I was waiting to hear back from them when I was interviewed by LGYC and offered the job on the spot. Okay, God, so you want me at camp.

I’ve already mentioned being stronger since I’ve come back from camp, so I won’t go too much into that. Instead I want to focus on God. Specifically His goodness. One of the things about camp and church and Christians is they challenge individuals to give themselves completely to God. (I suppose the bible tells you to do that too). It’s not that this is a new idea to me, or that I didn’t want to do that, but I realized I really hadn’t done that. Not that anyone truly has either, but this was my thought process.

Question 1: Why should I give myself to God?

Sunday school answer: Because of His unfailing love and because His plan for your life is perfect and He has your best interests at heart. (Selfish reasons, but they are all true.)

Question 2: How can I really know that God’s plan is perfect for me?

Sunday school answer: Because He is a good God that cares.

Question 3: How can I personally know that God is good?

Sunday school answer: Because he died on the cross for my sin, I can forever live with him.

Those are all true, but somehow I’d heard them too often and they had lost meaning — like a fact memorized for a test or knowledge without understanding. So my life was not fully given to God because deep down, I didn’t believe — I didn’t know — that God was good. It wasn’t real to me. How could God be good when I had experienced so much pain from other Christians? How can I know if God is good? How can God be good when he hasn’t shown ME?

When I was at camp, I had an epiphany: why don’t I just ask God to show me His goodness? I had never thought of this before… A lot of my prayers consisted of “your will be done”. That is still a great way to pray, but it’s not very helpful sometimes. For one, how can you know if your prayer is answered since you don’t really know what you’re asking for (that is unless you know God’s will for everything). But I think I didn’t pray for something so specific before because I was scared. What if God didn’t respond? Praying for something specific means that whatever happens you can’t just say “well that must have been God’s will, so prayer answered!” When you pray for something specific, you’re believing there’s a God who will hear you. You’re believing that He will answer you. You’re believing He is all powerful. You’re believing He can do anything. That’s scary because what if He doesn’t do or isn’t those things? General prayers can turn into cop-outs because there are so many ways they can “be answered”. Specific prayers mean business.

I was at camp. I meant business. So I asked God to show me His goodness, specifically through other believers that summer. I had it in my mind that it would take most of the summer for me to see God’s goodness, so I wasn’t prepared when the very next day He dropped it on me like a ton of gold. That day and every day after it I was loaded and loaded with more signs of His goodness, kindness, and love.

I’ve now been home for quite a while (yes, I take a while to finish posts sometimes), and I’ve had my faith restored in God through fellow believers and through that, my faith restored in believers. The real lesson here is this: God is big enough to answer your prayers — even the specific ones.

Because I’m Swamped

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I’ve done about as much work in the past eight weeks as I did all of last semester. Just one credit more, and it’s killing me. Well, there are other factors — such as tougher teachers, more projects, etc. — but the fact remains I’m swamped. I have no weekends. For a while I wasn’t sleeping, either. Bad, bad combination.

It’s times like these, when I feel weak, powerless, and pointless, that it’s most important to remain strong, powerful, and productive. “One day at time” is a cliche, but nonetheless a true statement. Even more importantly, however, is to keep prioritizing what really matters. It won’t matter if I get a B instead of an A in the long run, but my relationship with God will. Right now He needs to be my focus. I actually got up 15 minutes earlier one day to have devotions before school. I was sure I wouldn’t have enough time to get my morning routine done, but I was left with 30 minutes to spare somehow even with the addition of Bible reading and prayer. Amazing how God works…

Also, I’ve learned asking for help isn’t a bad thing. We were made for community after all. We come together to strengthen, encourage, and share experiences with each other. I can’t do this alone, and that’s okay. That doesn’t make me less of a person. In fact, it almost makes me more of a person. At the least, I’m a happier one. Being independent is over-emphasized in culture. Of course, have opinions, stay true to your beliefs, don’t overly depend on other people, but doing things alone is actually pretty dumb.

Through all the piles of schoolwork, I have had a very little time to get away and be social… or at least study with people.