College + Jesus

College wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t what it was portrayed in movies. I haven’t had the college experience that teenagers and young adults dream about. I’ve had the opposite – a nightmare. College just didn’t go the way I envisioned it. I can’t tell you my whole college experience here because, well frankly it’s long and I am tired of telling it.

Let’s put it this way, when people used to ask me about college and how it was going, they were expecting the typical “Oh, it’s great! I love it!” response. But that wasn’t the case. I couldn’t even fake a smile and say “good” without tears falling down my face and revealing my true feelings on the matter.

I only had three friends – one of them was killed by a drunk driver. My professors and community challenged and made fun of my faith in Jesus. My job as a Resident Advisor involved watching students have near death experiences over and over again, as well as domestic violence, rape and even suicide.

Though my time at college hasn’t been what I’ve dreamed of, it is the story of how Jesus was revealed through all of it.

I started college as a fresh Christian and in a “hunky-dory” faith per say. I was excited about being a Christian, but my faith had never been challenged. It was never shaken. I felt solid.

Enter college and you’ll get your faith knocked around.

I started facing trial after trial after trial and felt hopeless. Yet, God reminded me to be hopeful. As cliché as that sounds, it was true. When I was at my darkest and everyone was asking “Where is your God now?”, I wondered too. Where was my God? My Father? The King of all Kings? When everything was going against everything I planned, where was He? Then I read the poem Footprints in the Sand.

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it. 
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”

Instantly I had tears in my eyes. How was I so blind? I was being carried in the arms of God and didn’t even realize it. He had bigger plans – plans where I sometimes couldn’t even see the fruit. I quickly realized that His bigger plans were not having the best four years of college. The plans I made were the center of my being and I held on tight to what I wanted. My plans did not add to the Kingdom. As I started to see how each trial brought me closer to Him as well as brought others to know Him, I understood God’s plans were always better. There may be pain and hurt along the way, but there is amazing hope in the Lord to do good and build the Kingdom.

Your life may feel like a mess and that it isn’t going according to plan, but know that God is doing something bigger than you could ever imagine. He is moving in our plans, carrying us when we can’t walk on our own, and creating an incredible story that we can be a part of.