Tomorrow I turn 19. Another year has gone by, and I have to be honest in saying, 18 was a year for the books. The best way to describe it is a roller-coaster ride, which I had no clue I was going to go on. It’s like you go to the amusement park and get on a ride that you’ve heard is THE BEST in the whole park. Excited by all the hype, you are so ready to get on this roller coaster. But then you come up to the first hill, and your heart drops as you’re ascending the hill because you know the descent that come after you climb this hill. After that hill, you think it can’t get any worse. But every hill after it seems to only get steeper and steeper. Yeah, 18 was kinda like that for me. Let me back up though and first give 18 the credit it deserves because there were a lot of blessings that came my way.

First, I graduated from high school. I have a lot of pictures from my graduation night, and I love looking back at those and just being able to smile. I got to graduate from an amazing high school (shout out to GRCHS), and I got to do that beside the most amazing group of friends (shout out to Jen, Dayna, Brooke, Soph, Sam, Maria, Camelia, Jenn, Lauren, Emily, Kate, and anyone else I may be missing). This group of girls were so much fun to do high school with. God seriously amazes me with how well He orchestrated that group of friends. So to graduate with the girls that had been my closest friends for years and years was such a high moment for me.

Second, I came to college. On August 18 I came to Judson University and moved into my room! When I got here, I met some amazing people who have become such good friends. Just as God placed a group of people around me in high school, He’s been faithful to do the same now. The girls on my floor are some of the most Christ-centered women I have ever met. They push me to strengthen my relationship with Christ every day and to let my life glorify Him. I’ve been challenged by other people here to really develop my beliefs and be able to defend why I believe those things. I never realized it, but that’s something I didn’t necessarily know how to do when I came to Judson. I knew what I believed, but wasn’t the best at articulating why. For that reason, I’m so thankful for the people I have met who have challenged me in this way.

Third, I’m closer to God than I have ever been before. This has been the biggest blessing of them all. I have never been more dependent on God than I am right now, and I love it. I love not living off of my own power because I’ve realized if I try to do that, I fail every time. God has become my everything whereas before it saddens me to say, He was just something to me.

With this in mind, it is important to acknowledge that I think the reason I am so close to God is because of the hills I mentioned before that were a big part of this roller coaster called 18.

18 involved a lot of heartbreak for me. I’m going to be totally transparent and say that 18 didn’t start off well. At the end of my senior year, I was with a person that looking back on it, I should not have been with. I don’t say this to paint a picture of that person as being a bad person because I don’t believe they are. However, they definitely didn’t motivate me to act like Christ would want me to act. After all this was said and done and this person was out of my life, I looked at myself and didn’t really know who I was. That relationship caused more emotional damage than I thought it could. I felt far from God because I knew I hadn’t acted in a way that was pleasing to Him. After spending some time in really deep sorrow, God pulled me back up. He rebuilt me from the ground up except this time I was rooted in Him.

As 18 continued things got better, but that doesn’t mean things were only uphill from then on. I had a few more downhills. Don’t get me wrong college has been enjoyable, but not every day is a good one. It’s hard making new friends in a new place, and loneliness is a very real feeling. It’s difficult to be on campus with people you’ve only known for less than a year and struggle with wondering if anyone truly knows you or cares to know you. It’s hard to find your place on a campus (even if it is a small campus). It’s painful to have growing pains as college forces you to grow in ways you didn’t even know you needed to. It’s difficult to miss home. It’s heartbreaking to miss your absolute best friends that are 3 hours away at home. College is hard.

So that’s my year in review. I’ve had some pretty deep sorrow. I’m not sure that comes across in this article very explicitly because a lot of those hardships are things I’m still dealing with now, and I’m not ready to talk about those things with everyone reading this quit yet. However, with that sorrow has also been some pretty amazing joy. In all that this year was I am taking away one thing. God is good. Even when our circumstances are not what we hoped for, God is still so good. I’ll end with a verse that has been a source of comfort for me this year.

Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.’