Winter break is here! The hectic finals week has ended, and I'm as sleep deprived as I've ever been. But, that's OK because I have officially survived my first semester of college.

These last four months have been both exhausting and exciting all bundled into one, but I couldn't be more thankful for the lessons that I learned.

Ultimately, there are three things that I will be taking away from this semester, and I wanted to elaborate on those

1. Patience

I have never been one to sit around and wait for something to happen. If I wanted something, I was never the type to just sit and wait, I would move and take action to get it. That's not a poor quality, but there's a certain beauty in waiting for what God has planned. His timing is perfect, and I had to learn to trust that.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1

2. Seeking God out no matter where I was or what I was doing

Like I said in my first post, being away from home and not having to listen to your parents on what you do and where you go will sometimes get you off track. Being at a Baptist school didn't mean anything either.

I was going through the motions for the first two months of school, and then I realized that going to church on Sundays, Chapel on Tuesdays and some Bible studies on occasion wasn't going to cut it. I have to want it.

Changing my perspective was a big part of this process. I had to learn to look at the "bad" things that were happening in my life as things that are shaping me to be a better person in the future. Again, it's all about trusting God's beautiful and perfect timing.

3. Being myself

This was a particularly difficult one. Going to a small school, in a small town, where absolutely nobody knew who I was before college was overly appealing to me. I had the power to be whoever I wanted to be and no one would ever know.

I always knew how it wasn't the best choice to change yourself in order to please others, but I had never fully experienced that until this year. I didn't just change who I was, but I lost my original self. Don't do this.

You are beautiful, smart, important and everything in between. God made you who you are for a reason. Trust that.

Now, all of these all had a common factor: trust in God. God knows you. He knows the choices you're going to make before you make them. He knows how you're going to react to certain situations. He knows everything about you, good and bad, and He still wants you. Rest in knowing that today.

“Faith does not make things easy, it makes them possible.” Luke 1:37