"Sooo... How'd freshman year of college go?"

That's a question many of us are getting nowadays. Actually, no one has asked me that but my mom. But... I'm just going to run with this anyway.

The short story is:

The first semester was anything but peachy.

The second semester was happy.

Both involved some painful change and lots of blessings, loads of grace.

Just a sec, and I'll give you a few examples of some feelings I wrote down during the first semester.

OK

1. "Sitting in my dorm room alone wishing that I wasn't at Auburn."

2. "I need to suck it up"

3. and "I feel useless"

4. On my birthday I wrote: "I'm worn to the bone... where are you God in the confusion and exhausted despair (!) of calculus?" (It was very late at night.)

5. Then in September, "I hate college, Auburn specifically."

6. "I've become cynical of anyone and everyone."

7. "All of my expectations for college have hit the fan." That's a blanket statement.

8. "I'm in love with Billy Joel." That was a weird week.

9. "I feel so blind in life."

10. "I wake up on the wrong side of the bed every morning."

11. "'And I said the word of poop.' (Junie B Jones)"

Looking back, most of these statements are overdramatic. My emotions really had me by the neck.

And these are just a few choice quotes directly from my journal between the months of August and November. What you can't see, and what you would see if you flipped through the pages around these words and even the sentences around them, are many, many prayers to God. There are proclamations of His goodness and thanksgiving for His gifts, prayers for the campus and students and so on.

I'm not proud of how I handled my first semester of college, and it was emotionally brutal because of the huge tower of expectations that I had been constructing for years.

I would drive home crying. I would wake up angry.

I would walk around bitter. I truly let my emotions drive the car, and I was held captive by fear and self-focus. But there was a good sort of breaking in my daily shuffling and much good grew from it.

I'm not proud, but I wouldn't undo it.

I was put in a place where I felt useless, felt undone, felt like I'd lost my identity, and I was forced to consciously rely on Jesus to keep me afloat every minute of every day. I lost my love for myself and became more disillusioned with my abilities and character. I was humbled, and God was glorified.

Pushed to this level of humility, this level of have-nothing, I took risks and did things that my pride would have prevented me from in the past.

I wouldn't have my job had I not hit the bottom of the well like this. I wouldn't have my friends. I would have missed out on a lot of wisdom, would have missed out on seeing God's goodness and sovereignty in pain.

I've seen it on a small scale, and I testify: how God draws close to the broken-hearted. He is the good shepherd, and I'm the dumb-butt sheep. For real.

The second semester was a figurative as well as literal springtime, the thawing.

It was a time of healing and restoration, of God graciously blessing me with so many of the things I'd asked for, that I'd whined and complained over. He showed me so clearly how His timing is perfect, even though He didn't have to. God owes me no explanations.

There was restoration and redemption, but I came to the edge of another pitfall.

The pitfall of things going "super good." All the sudden, I did not so deeply feel my need for God. I tried to walk on my own to some extent, to be self-sufficient. Thank God, I fell on my face after a week or so. I stood up and realized where I had come and praised the Lord for my dependency on Him.

So I ended the year still awkward, still sinful. But I am abundantly blessed with friends and a job I love. I have been blessed with a hard semester and a happy semester.

I don't ever want to live away from Christ Jesus. How gracious is He not to give up on me.

This is my prayer: No matter where He takes me, no matter what He asks of me, I want to eternally and daily lean on the Everlasting Arms; they carried me through the sadness and joy of this year. They have never failed anyone yet, and they never shall.

If you are a rising freshman, if you are a rising sophomore or none of these, I want to encourage you. Professors will bash the name of Jesus, and your peers will scoff at Him, spit on Him. This is temporary, even trivial. Jesus hurts with you, but remember that the pain you feel isn't even a blink in the light of eternity with the Lord. Jesus has already overcome the world and its troubles! He has made us fearfully and wonderfully, and He promises to never leave us or forsake us.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never breaks a promise.

Christians around the world and the nation of Israel stand as a visible testament. So when you feel utterly alone, call on His name. If you don't know Him personally, give Him your life. Everything else in your life is going to fail you at some point. My life emotionally broke into pieces, and yet Jesus remained. Emmanuel means "God with us." This is His very name!

The Good Shepherd is with His sheep always, even to the end of the age.