Settling in

So my sixth week of college is underway. (Goodness, has it really been that long...?!)

For some odd reason I am feeling a lower amount of pressure this week. Our Rhetoric professor is going a little easier on us since we turned in our first major assignment last week - which counts for 20% of the grade - and while the Calculus homework continues to pile in, I am starting to get into a rhythm for completing it. While it's never completely accurate and often partially incomplete, I am trying my best to figure things out even when atleast a third of the material looks like gibberish to me...

My grandma made a care package for me this weekend that was basically filled with every type of junk food imaginable: frosted cookies, goldfish crackers, powdered donuts, Chex Mix, etc. THANK YOU GRANDMA. My mom also went out of her way to buy me chicken patties, pizza rolls, chocolate milk, orange juice, and more breakfast biscuits. 

Have I ever mentioned that I have been blessed with the best family? It is something I take for granted, but I need to remember it and thank God every day for it.

You know what's really odd? I started counting down the days this morning til when I could come home again, and it's only 11 days. Just eleven! That seems so crazy to me. It's also odd of me to be counting them down. I had a great weekend at home, but I didn't get a chance to talk with everyone that I wanted to. Three days isn't enough to pack everything in, unfortunately... while October 3rd feels like months away, I know that this weekend is going to fly by because of the Purdue trip, and before I know it I'll be jumping in my truck and making the trip down I-80 again...

I'm enjoying college as a whole, but I still am admittedly not enjoying the world of having to share a room with someone else. There's no "private space" here. And that's something I dearly miss. And that's ultimately why I look forward to those weekends when I can come back, even if it's for just a few days.

:-)

The Gospel

I was walking to my 1:30 Rhetoric class today when, in the middle of the walkway, there was a man. 

He was holding up a large, neon sign that said, "Don't Waste 4 Years in College, Come to Jesus and He Will Set You Free!" (Or something along those lines, I don't really remember.) And he was going on and on about how we would all waste our money for four years, get jobs that we didn't want, and never find Jesus. But if we ditched all of that now and followed Jesus (he never really emphasized what "follow Jesus" meant), we would be better off!

(Newsflash... I'm following Jesus AND attending college, so his logic seemed a bit flawed. Lol. But that's beside the point.)

That's not what made me sad. It was the reaction to this event in my Rhetoric class.

Everyone was so offended that some man had been telling them how to live their lives. I heard one person say, "I don't need that guy's Jesus!!!" while others were just complaining about how annoying Christians are. 

This hurts me. 

Not in the sense that I'm offended, but in the sense that this is exactly what we're not supposed to be doing as Christians. And I experienced it firsthand today.

The gospel is not someone standing in the street and telling us that we're going to have crummy lives if we continue on our paths.
The gospel is not what I witnessed from my peers in Rhetoric.
The gospel isn't even telling someone to follow Jesus. You can tell that to anyone, and they won't understand what that means.

The gospel is showing Jesus' love.

It's inviting complete strangers into your home, just to talk.
It's selflessly going down to Mexico to help build houses.
It's inviting a lonely friend to fellowship or youth group.
It's letting someone cry on your shoulder, even if you don't understand their situation.
It's praying for your best friend for years and years.
It's being able to confess your love for Jesus in front of unbelievers.

It's everything that I didn't see today on campus...

And that makes me want to shine God's light even more.

Putting it all together

Tonight has been the first night in a long time that I've had a chance to take a break from the stress of homework. And that's a great thing considering I basically bombed my Calculus quiz this morning. :-/

While I was mostly just planning on being lazy and surfing the internet, I instead got the chance to contact a lot of different people.



I had a long conversation with a few good friends back home.

I talked with my roommate about Christianity, Islam, and politics. And it was a pleasant discussion.

Another friend back home texted me, and we had a nice conversation about faith, trust, and not overworking yourself. 

I had a nice dinner talk with a few of my sousie friends.

I talked to my mom on Facebook and was really open about the struggles I've been having this week. I miss her so much...

A high school friend who I haven't seen in a long time texted me too, and it was nice to catch up.

I even chatted with a few people on my floor about "What superpower you would have if you could have one." (Yes, we're nerds.)



Today has opened my eyes to how many people God is constantly placing in my life. Even when I doubt him, don't place my trust in him, or underestimate his ability in general, he loves me anyway. This morning started off really bad (I was even in tears after taking my quiz), but as I sit here now, I'm feeling more content than ever. Is it a temporary feeling? Likely. I can't seem to go more than a few hours in college without getting stressed out... but it's a great feeling.

And these relationships and discussions are the things that I really need to hold on to.

Week update thingy

All of my friends have such great titles for all of their blog posts... so here's my completely unoriginal one.

I'm in a state of flux right now. Just when one problem gets diminished, it feels like another one rises up in its place. My worries about Calculus were allayed this week when I took a quiz that turned out to be much easier than I anticipated; I also am starting to make friends with a few other kids in the class. However, now Rhetoric is starting to overwhelm me with the sheer amount of stuff we have to get done. None of it's really hard stuff, but it's enough to bog me down. I spent three hours alone today working on a regular homework assignment... I sincerely hope that it's not always like this.

Marching band is going well, but I'm not very excited for tomorrow since I just developed a cold today, and it's bound to be even worse during gameday. Not even DayQuil and a surplus of cough drops is going to be enough to help me survive that. :-/

On top of that, I have friends who want to go out to parties and go to church on Sunday morning and go hang out during the weekend... and honestly? All I feel like doing is sleeping. Sleeping and completing some of the homework that I need to get done by Monday. I love Jesus and I'm eager to go out and explore for churches in Iowa City, but not with this darned stuffiness and coughing and whatnot. Sleeping in til 11:00 for the first time in ages sounds amazing.

I wish I had a remote that could just put life on hold for 24 hours.

Someone should invent that.

I should create an algorithm to do that for Computer Science...

But I think my bed is calling me.

Yeah, it is.

...

Good night everyone! Or good morning. Whenever you read this.

Wrenches

I don't think anyone in this world can ever truly be prepared for a transition like the one that I went through over the past three weeks. The worrying, the denials, the tears, the stress, the excitement, and the constant hills and valleys. 

Just when I think I've got everything figured out, God throws a wrench in my perfect little plan. 

The majority of the time I try to dodge the wrench, but then God laughs and throws another one with better aim. 

And it wallops me in the stomach.

Most of the time I do a lot of whining. 

Calculus class not going well? Whine.
Buses are running 10 minutes late? Complain.
Not understanding my Calculus professor? Feel sorry for myself.
Horrible schedule on Wednesday? Mope about it.
Calculus? ... You get it...

In reality, though, God is using all of these wrenches to strengthen me! Of course He doesn't want me to go through Calculus feeling like I know everything. He wants me to genuinely learn something from this course. And by not understanding what the heck is going on, He is forcing me to do that. My awful Wednesday schedule is helping me learn to prioritize other days of the week so that I'm not swimming in work on other days.

I will probably never stop complaining about these random wrenches... but it feels good to know that none of them are without purpose. :-)

So the next time God throws a wrench at you, catch that thing!!!

Oh, this is the actual college experience...

I think that some part of me over the past week believed that marching band was the only thing I was up at Iowa for. After all, that's pretty much all I did for the first eight days that I was here. Practice in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Parties and other stuff at night. Meet people, make friends, snooze, wake up with frickin' leg cramps (Tuesday was seriously the pit of awfulness for me), repeat.

What am I forgetting?

Oh, that's right... classes!

I had Calculus and Rhetoric today. Calculus makes me nervous, mostly because there are a lot of things they expect us to know that I either never learned in high school or didn't retain very well. However, I think that if I simply work and practice at relearning old concepts and figuring out the new ones, I'll be alright. Rhetoric, on the other hand... uggggggggggggh. I normally like English-related courses, but this one mixes language with speaking with writing with arguments with research with SO MUCH HOMEWORK. It's my first night of actual school, and I'm already writing a short essay and watching videos.

Lol. I love how I type that out as if I was surprised I would actually have to do work for my classes.

Empathy

Whenever I go through troubled times, it's so easy for me to look at others who are in green pastures and think, "Why can't my life be as perfect as hers?" or "I want to be more like him." And I hate having that feeling. God puts us all through different trials and different experiences for a reason, and it's not to sit and compare ourselves to others.

But as humans, that's still what we do.

A lot of people have been asking me over the past few days how I'm feeling about college. The answer? Fantastic! My sousie buddies have basically become like a family to me over the course of a week. My roommate and I are getting along fine, and I'm feeling more content than ever.

However, I never want to look at others and just assume that everything is OK for them too. We are called by our Lord to show empathy with others around us and to hold them up when they are falling, and I want to do just that. Whether that means giving advice or just listen, I want to help in some way. Because I realize that my life could look totally different in a week, and I could be in the same position that someone I know is.