When I found myself walking to my 8 am class on my first day at Whitewater, I came to a very obvious realization. I was alone. There was nothing familiar about the environment I was in and that sent me into a bit of a mental frenzy. I realized at that exact moment that I could no longer fully depend on my mother and father to be whatever I wasn’t. They are always just a phone call or text away but that is a bit different than being face to face. I had no one to depend on except myself….or so I thought.
I am a Christian. True.
Because you are a Christian life will go on exactly as planned due to the fact that you have it all together. Absolutely false.
The hardcore truth is that while going into the transition of transferring two hours away to Whitewater, I felt about as far away from God that I have felt in a very long time. That growing distance between The Lord and myself was all my doing too. God does not move from us, we do all the traveling. I just felt that this wall that I had built up in the last couple months between Him and I had been reinforced and that it was going to take a miracle to knock it down.
The first week of school was an absolute blur but during that week, I began doing something that I had not done in a couple months. I prayed for guidance and I prayed for strength because that was something that was and is always desperately needed. An hour had passed and I was unpacking a crate full of random items from home and my Bible actually fell out of the crate and straight into my lap. Once again, I did something I had not done in months. I cracked open my Bible and just started reading. Next thing I knew, three hours had passed and I had missed dinner.
The point I am trying to make here is that I am now roughly a month into my time at Whitewater and have not felt this close to God in a long time. In only three weeks I have reset my sights on God and have really made strides in correcting habits that kept me from being this close to Him. One of the amazing things about God is that He always wants us no matter the bonehead decisions we made in the past. He loves us and desires to have a relationship with us. He will use anything to have that relationship with us…even something as simple as a Bible falling on your lap.
Keeping myself in God’s word consistently has led to a couple verses being stuck in my mind. I have found strength with these verses and rely on them daily and I feel led to share them because maybe you need to hear them too.
“Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.”
-Matthew 6:27
“These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold-and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.”
-1 Peter 1:7
“Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong.”
-1 Peter 3:17
“If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.”
-James 1:26
It is my hope and prayer that with whatever battle you are facing, maybe you can find some hope in our loving Father. If this first three weeks of the semester is any indication, I will be going to God even more than I could have suspected in the first place.
