I’ve learned a lot from living in community on campus at my tiny Baptist college. I’ve learned that everyone hates it when you forget to take your laundry out of the dryer and no matter how different you are or what country you’re from this is universally considered rude. I’ve learned that my loud full voice has the super human ability to float all the way down the hall and be heard in every room during quiet hours resulting in my having to apologize to neighbors near and far; and I’ve learned that we are all looking for something. Even the most satisfied student can be found with a longing in their eyes and for a long time I could not place a name to what it is we were all looking for, but the quiet understanding of my peers was comforting enough to aid me in searching for the answer. You see, something sparks in you the moment you throw your bag onto a dorm room floor. From the moment you place your last decoration on the wall and settle in for your first night you begin to realize something is missing. As happy as I am in my twin-sized bed, as much as I look forward to waking up and going to class I’ve felt something in me looking for something that I couldn’t put my finger on. I’m not sure it’s the wisdom that comes hand in hand with getting older or surviving freshman year or simply luck but I have finally put a name to the thing that seemed to placed right out of my reach; permanence.

It took almost having everything ripped from my hands to realize just how hard I was clinging to this idea of permanence. Placing it before almost everything else in my life and wasting time, effort and energy looking for it in all the wrong places. The moment I moved out of my childhood home it was no longer my home, my new dorm room was just a room with a mattress that I had to connection to. My friends from school had moved on to their own lives and they were having their own crisis.My new college friends were still strangers that I wasn’t ready to open up to quite yet. I slipped into a lie that I was just floating and didn’t have anything to hold onto. As I was looking all around me for answers to my pressing question I had forgotten to fix my eyes on something that will never ever change: I forgot about the cross.

After almost seven years as a faithful christian this seems like the simple answer to the problem. It's almost embarrassing it took me to get here but, that’s what growing in wisdom is all about. After what felt like an impossibly long battle I remembered exactly what it is I signed my heart over to at 13 years old, I signed on to permanence. The cross is the symbol of the unshakeable thing that I’ve been trying to hang my hat on (figuratively) and it’s always been there just waiting for me to look up. As I threw myself into a major that I would eventually change four times and friendships with people that would come and go. The one Man who has been actively seeking me waited patiently for me to run home and let him be my permanent. You see, the second I took my anchor out from my own comfort and I accepted that faithful and happy are not always synonyms, I was overwhelmed with the fact that I found something that is always going to be mine. No matter where I am and what I’m doing. No matter what color my hair is, if I’m living with five roommates or none, if I’m flooded with happiness or I’m stuck in sorrow. Scripture will always be scripture and the sacrifice made on the cross for my salvation will always stand. Nothing about it can ever change. The day I answered the knock on my heart, or whatever cute phrase you’d like to use, that means I accepted Christ. I got exactly what I would be searching for seven years later and that is the power of the gospel. It is taking broken people who are searching for a nameless permanence and transforming their lives with an immovable stability that can only be given to you by the creator of the heavens and the earth who was and is to come. (Rev 1:8)

So, I challenge you to look your question in the face. To reflect in on the thing that keeps you up at night and pulls your attention in the moments you let your mind go idle and ask yourself, am I looking for permanence? Am I resting my heart in the hands of people and plans that can only fade? Or are have you truly given in to Christ being your cornerstone? (Eph 2:20).

~The pain of hard seasons of life will fade but the lessons we learn by being driven to our knees is permanent.~