Haha! I'm so good - two posts in three days. :)
I guess this is just another unravelling entry, getting further into the explanation of my life as a college student. One thing I've really had to make a conscious effort to do here is to pursue faith. It's funny - it's never something I've had to really do, at least not to this magnitude. Faith has been literally brought to me. It's been my choice, obviously, to believe or not, and to what degree I actually live it. And I thought I was doing pretty well.
Coming here, I've learned a lot about how crucial the Christian community really is in my life. The first week of WSU none of the ministries were meeting. And I was drowning - in a giant pool of loneliness and self-pity. Although I was meeting people, it was obvious how far away we were from one another spiritually, and it just creates this bubble of total isolation. The first time I went to a campus group, I was literally more emotionally fragile than I think I've ever been. And EVERYthing made me cry. The person sitting next to me asked how I was, and I almost lost it. Because when you spend your entire life, your entire existence, taking Christian fellowship for granted, it's amazing how fast you dry up. I've learned what it means to be truly "thirsty" for God, and I've had to be bold about who I am.
It's like, the second that you meet someone now, you get an idea of where they stand. There's such an obvious difference between light and dark in people - something I wasn't used to noticing before. It's really true - Jesus shines THROUGH people.
I've been so excited to start finding people that I identify with. I've been going to a service on Sunday evenings called Resonate, and their small group on Wednesday nights, as well as Chi Alpha (the A/G campus ministry) on Tuesdays when I'm not swamped with homework, and their women's group called "Core" on Thursdays. So I'm busy almost every evening of the week if I want to be, with church. And it's fabulous. I went to lunch this afternoon with someone from Chi Alpha, and she put it really well - "With another Christian, you can be friends in less than a minute, because you're brothers and sisters. With a non-believer, it takes longer to find substance to make that deeper connection." So true! One of the things I LOVED about Cornerstone was that everyone there was as close to me as a sibling, and I loved them that much. I realize now that it can be like that with people I've just met, solely because we both share the same Father.
It's weird for me to be this open about faith stuff. I'm usually one of those people who thinks that if I live my life as a testimony, the opportunities to share will just appear. Now, I'm actually looking for those open doors on my own - watching for any chance to talk about God. It's something I'd always wished to be like, and never had to. It's freeing, and also scary, because I realize how hard it is to verbalize some of the things I've always just "understood" about Christianity. Or things I'd "assumed" about other religions. Once you have faces, friends, to put to those affiliations, it's so much easier to want to share with them, to want to be that missionary. And it's also a LOT harder to believe in stereotyping people.
No matter how much blech I've been in the last (wow, almost) four weeks, it's true that I AM having a good time. I know that once this awkward transition period is over, I'll really like college. This is where I was planted, and I'm ready to keep walking forward.
*Lyrics from "The Stand"
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