“I was not supposed to be this girl.” This is what left my lips as I got off the phone with my parents after crying about wanting to come home from college. The months leading up to my big move to Southeastern University, so many people had told me this would be “my season." I believed doors would be opened and my identity was going to be found. What happens when these moments don’t come as quickly as you thought they would?

My identity was solely found in the years following my decision to pursue a degree in ministry. I knew who I was because I knew that I had a passion for ministry and worship. I was one of the only seniors I knew in my area pursuing this as a career, and I knew myself through that. It was a quick and painful realization as I stepped into my new life here at Southeastern University that I was not the only one who was identified by the same passions and goals.

I felt insignificant.

Not only did it feel as if everyone I met here was studying ministry and trying out for the worship team, but they were way more confident and talented than I could ever be. I wanted to run and hide, I still do some days. I watched through Instagram stories as the people around me pushed themselves into doors and opportunities while I sat around still feeling alone, confused.

I fed into the rejection of reaching out to others and not hearing back, I let comparison grip my mind and tell me I would never be good enough to reach the levels that other students on campus have. I wanted to run away to my safe places, places of automatic validation where I knew I would be accepted...but it’s impossible to run 1,000 miles to where those places are.

Isn’t God funny that way? He knew running away would be the initial plan, so he pulled me out and placed me where that would be nearly impossible. This was not supposed to be me! I was supposed to be the one getting recognized by those around me, I was supposed to be the one making connections and helping with events, I was not supposed to be looked past again, so why am I being look past again? I do not have the answer to this question. What I do know is that there is a lesson to be learned in every hard moment we experience.

My mom worded it perfectly as I shared my heart with her on the phone. “Honey, there’s no such thing as green grass.” It is so easy for me to get a “grass is greener” attitude when my life does not look exactly how I want it to, but there is raw truth in those words. No one's grass is perfectly green! In the behind the scenes of everyone's life there are some hidden patches of not-so-green grass.

So here are two challenges for myself and anyone else who is feeling this way about their circumstance:

1. Let’s take this one day at a time.

Whenever I go through a hard time in my life, I automatically label it a “waiting season,” because if I have something to look forward to I will not have to dwell on how bad my life is right now. The risk I take with this outlook is fantasizing the future so much that I lose the motivation to go through each day. God is slapping me in the face with the truth that EACH DAY IS A GIFT. Your blessing is not always in the next season, so often there is hidden blessing in the current season that we miss when we do not live in the present.

So let’s commit to finding blessing and opportunity in each day, rather than in the future. It might mean we have to look a little harder, but sometimes the best blessings are the ones we work for. (And how much sweeter will the future be if we do not put such unrealistic expectation on it by fantasizing over it in our dry seasons? Let the future and it’s blessings surprise you, not disappoint you.)

2. Let’s not make decisions based on a feeling.

I am a feeler. 110%. Everything I do is influenced by feeling. This makes me an empathetic person. I live to feel emotion with others and help them find the victory. Being a feeler can also cause me to make snap decisions based off of how I feel, rather than what God wants for me. So when I have bad days at college, I am automatically planning how to drop out and go home before I think to take a deep breath and pray. This is who I am, so I need to prepare myself in this season to take things one day at a time. My emotions are all over the place right now. One moment I am crying to go home, and the next I am loving my life in Florida. I know in my heart this place is not forever, but it’s not my call to say when I leave.

In every season, we are never alone. Above all things that cannot be forgotten. I wrote this as a way to release what I went through my first semester of college with the hope that it can reach others who may be going through the same battle. Through Him, we will not be shaken.