I think maybe God made me for this—this journey. For twelve years, I only attended two small Catholic schools. I was sheltered by the Word inside my home. I didn’t know otherwise, and I was fine with it.
To be honest, I never really made it into the real world until I got here.
I don’t know what compelled me to leave the comfort of my tiny school and tiny town for this enormous place.
I am one of thousands here.
I’d venture to say that I am one of many fewer Christians.
Life is different now.
I am only one teeny-tiny light, what difference could I make?
This is what it’s like to be a Christian in college.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
-2 Corinthians 17
It’s hard.
I remember sweating in the sun while I passed out questionnaires for Cru, a ministry here on campus.
A dark-haired student approached me, and I made eye contact, just like I was supposed to.
I smiled.
He looked at me and asked if we were the “Jesus people.”
When I told him yes, he walked away.
My heart dropped. I wanted to go home and be finished.
My eyes welled up with tears, but I didn’t leave.
Today, I’m actually pretty thankful for that boy. He probably doesn’t remember me, but I remember him. He made me aware of my crybaby tendencies, and then he made me stronger.
It’s awkward.
I remember sitting in the library one night. It was late, and I was tired enough to plead insanity for what I was about to do.
I sat there looking at the girl studying at a table a few feet away.
I don’t know what it was about her that caught my attention, but I couldn’t shake it.
I felt it inside me—that annoyingly forceful nudging.
I knew what I had to do, and to this day, I still don’t know why it needed to be done, but God does, and I’m all right with that.
I can’t remember the verse that I felt Him tell me to find, but I know I’d never read it before. It had virtually no significance to me.
I went back and forth in my head, pleading for God to leave me alone, just let me have this one, I’m weird enough as it is.
“No, come on, go,” I felt Him pester.
So I wrote the verse onto a pink card and stood up.
I remember feeling mortified as I approached her.
“Look, I know this is weird, but I felt like you needed this, so… yeah.”
Word vomit.
She looked at me and scrunched her eyebrows before she took the paper. I smiled, completely mortified, and walked away.
I felt a lot lighter after that.
That notecard meant nothing to me, but I pray it meant something to her.
It’s amazing.
This place is my home.
I’ve heard it described as a mission field—this world we live in.
It’s true.
This school is my mission field, our mission field.
This is a place to touch the hands of the unreached, to share hope with those so desperate for something greater than the here and now.
There are so many teeny-tiny lights here.
Separate, we are so small.
But there are hundreds of us, thousands, even.
There are so many others fighting alongside one another here.
And in the moments we stand with hands raised in darkness, we shine.
We sing together, we pray together, we praise together.
We will go and make disciples.
Together.
Being a Christian in college is hard and awkward and discouraging.
But I am not alone in this mission field.
