My last Wednesday night service at my home church, my youth pastor preached a message to each class. We had everyone from incoming freshmen in high school, to incoming freshmen in college (that's me!). Being the oldest group of teens there, I felt silly listening to the freshmen message, I looked over at the almost freshmen in high school and thought "I'm not like them, I've already been through this, we have nothing in common." Boy was I wrong. My youth pastor started his lesson to the freshmen, and the key phrase was "Trust God from the start."
When I heard those words, I thought back to how I had gotten to this point in my life. I thought back to November when I visited the place that I was certain that I would call home, Corban University. That was my dream, I was convinced that I would not be happier anywhere else. This was it. My visit went very well, I met with the track coach and leaving the conversation, I was sure that I was meant to be here. In the midst of all of this, God has something better in mind. The next few months were very frustrating to me. I had an injury from volleyball season, and it had pretty much healed up, but then in January, I re-injured it while training for the upcoming track season. I was put into physical therapy and was only supposed to go for six weeks. Ten weeks later I still was not healed the way I should have been.
During my senior year, I had one of the best small group leaders I could have asked for. On a typical Wednesday night, it was me, my leader, and one of my good friends. We talked a lot about listening to what God wants you to do instead of what you wanted to do, we also talked about what God does to get your attention when you're not following His plan. My friend in our group said that when she doesn't focus on God, she gets hurt, then a lightbulb went on. I had al these plans in my mind of where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do, but I hadn't stopped and asked God what He wanted me to do. Finally, I gave up what I thought was my dream, and let God do His thing. I let go of my Corban dream and God showed me that where I was supposed to be was sitting right under my nose. Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids MI.
Cornerstone was the first college to ever contact me about being on their track team. I had looked into it a little, but I was so blinded by what I thought I wanted, that I almost missed where I am supposed to be. The afternoon that I was supposed to talk with the Cornerstone Track & Field coach, I prayed and said "I need you to make it clear if this is where I'm supposed to be." I had a number in my head of how much I needed to make it financially possible to attend Cornerstone, and God being who He is, I was offered double the amount I had in my head. That's when I knew that I was going to the right place. As soon as I let God do His thing, so much peace come over me. This peace was reiterated when I was at track camp.
One day, my group had a very tough workout (pushing vans are fun...right?) and after it was over, our group of 6 came together and prayed together for God to help us remember the pain that we had survived together and to help us remember the pain that Jesus had gone through for us. That night, the team captains spoke and washed everyones feet like Jesus had done for his disciples. All I heard in that moment was, "This is exactly where you need to be." I can't imagine being anywhere else.
