My first week of my second year of college is probably right up there on the top ten list of one of the worst weeks I’ve had in my schooling career. It’s not that any one thing made it awful, but the entirety of the week was just not fun at all. I was actually excited for school to start back up this year. I wasn’t nervous at all. I was super ready to see all my friends and get back in that “on-campus” feel, but if there’s one thing I learned from my first week of school, it’s that I cannot handle a lot at one time. This is essentially how my weekdays went. Mind you, I live thirty to forty-five minutes away from campus. On Monday and Wednesday, I went to work from 5am-12pm and then sat through class from 2:40 p.m. to 5:35 p.m. On Tuesday and Thursday, I had class all day from 9:40 a.m. to 4:05 p.m., and on Friday, I worked 5 a.m. to noon and Saturday 6 a.m. to noon. Anyone that knows me knows that I sleep, a lot. I need it in full amounts, otherwise I am cranky, dysfunctional, and overall just not a happy person to be around. So with this full and hectic schedule on my hands, I was not a happy camper most of the days.
Thursday was a special day for me though. I had a “coming-to-Jesus meeting” as you could say. I was sitting in my campus library trying to get at least some of the homework done that I was already behind on. As I sat by the giant glass front of the library that overlooks the quad, I noticed that the clouds outside started to get super dark. I double-checked my phone’s weather app because I was pretty sure it wasn’t suppose to rain that day. As my phone said it was suppose to be sunny all day, I was rather confused as to what was happening. Well, knowing that I had my English class in 30 minutes all the way across campus, I had better get to booking it before the bottom fell out. Thankfully I made it to class, and it didn’t actually start raining until I was walking back to my car to head home. At this point, I had called my mom to complain about how my days had gone since it was finally my last day of the week. When it started pouring, I wasn’t even half way to my car and I had to get off the phone with my mom really fast. I tucked my phone in the waistline of my shorts and started walking faster than ever before. Being that I had no raincoat or umbrella, I knew I was going to get soaked along with everything in my backpack. As I was speed walking across campus, I saw so many people sprinting to class; some with raincoats, some with just regular clothes on. Seeing these people sprinting to class, I thought of something I’ve never thought of before; this rain absolutely sucks and not exactly how I wanted to end my week, but I think God was trying to tell me something.
I looked up at the sky and it’s like I could see every one little raindrop fall down in slow motion, and as the drops hit my face, I felt a sense of refreshment. I felt rejuvenated even though my week was so terrible, and I felt like God was telling me that it’s going to be okay. It was going to work out in the end, and it wasn’t until Monday of the next week that I found out this was true. I had to quit my job because working at 5am and doing school in the afternoon just wasn’t going to cut it. This has put a little stress on me because I need money, but Monday just treated me so well. I got to see people on campus I hadn’t seen in a while and overall school was just really good. I had such a different outlook on how my week was going to go.
If you asked me my first day back at school if the rest of my semester would be good, I would probably say no. But looking at it now, I don’t know why I was so worried. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about college, it’s that a bad day doesn’t always mean a bad week, and a bad week does not last forever. That’s a promise. God has you taken care of. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to do school and work, and God directed me to school only. Like I said before, I worry a little about not having a job right now, but maybe this is an opportunity for me to get involved in school organizations or to travel some; I don’t know. But life to me is like walking to my car in the pouring rain after a long day. Sometimes I don’t mind forgetting my raincoat. It’s a good reminder that He is bigger than I, and I can’t control whether I get wet or not. I just have to trust it and accept what I cannot change.
