Hey loves, staying home from college was and is the right decision for me, I feel confident in that but there are some things about it that make it weird...well that’s the best word I can think of to describe it anyways. I love being home, I love hanging out with my parents, and I love the familiarity of home...but it's still weird. I share a room with my nine year old sister and I don’t have a lot of friends around so I spend most of my days going to the gym, going to work, and going to class. Everything has changed and while I don’t love change, the change is good.
I’ve made it one full semester home and I have learned a lot in that short amount of time. I am going to sum it up in three main points and expound on those a little bit. First, Loneliness is real and it hurts, very few things beat being lonely. Second, your religion isn’t defined by your friends or family or even your church. Lastly, God is sovereign and good in every. single. moment. I could leave it at that, but let me share with you a little bit from my personal life to make it a little more real.
My first point was that loneliness hurts and it is hard to combat it. I spent all of last semester trying to heal the loneliness with anything. I tried social media. I tried netflix. I tried friends. I tried staying alone. I tried surrounding myself with people. I tried working every day for 3.5 weeks. Nothing worked. All it did was exhaust me and steal the little joy that I had left. It wasn’t until I went to the cross conference at the beginning of this semester that the truth hit me. People will always come and go, people will always leave, people will always move away, people will always fail you BUT God. Ah, that’s my most favorite two words ever! He promises us that He will never leave us and He says that His ways are higher than ours and that we have no need to fear tomorrow for tomorrow worries for itself. It took a long season of me feeling nothing from God to realize this. The only thing I was sure of was that God was real and that’s all I could tell you. He proved to me that His plan is so much better. Had I left with my friends, I would’ve missed meeting some of the most influential people ever, I would’ve missed getting my dream job, I would’ve missed out on so many good things because I was ‘lonely’. God surrounded me with people at work, family, and especially Han who helped me walk through this, even when I wasn’t very vocal about it.
(The other points aren’t as long I promise!) Second, I had to learn to think more for myself and it revealed to me how much I was basing my religion off of other people. I realized that my opinions were based off what other people said, not from what I found in the Bible. While it’s important for you to talk about religion with other people, make your own choices about what you believe in. Don’t be a Christian because your parents are or because your friends are, be a Christian because you know Christ.
Lastly, God is sovereign and good every time. If I could tell you my entire life story of how God provides you wouldn’t believe everything He has done and how good He has been. He has provided me with a Lead teaching job this semester. I am now Ms. Alford and I teach middle school math! Getting my new car, I wouldn’t have money for a car or pay it off if I was away. Working with the youth group at my church and building relationships with people I already know! I wouldn’t have the blog had I left. I wouldn’t be nearly as good friends with Han, and I wouldn’t have the relationship with my mom that I have. God has worked everything together perfectly for me. I wouldn’t trade any of the hurt for the Joy it brought!
If you’re in a season of loneliness find someone to push you on, just one. God will bring you through this just keep waiting and searching. He will make himself known sooner than you think. Dark seasons are hard but we have to remember He never promised to make our life easy but that He would ALWAYS be there and he would ALWAYS do what was best for us. He won’t lead you astray and He won’t give you more than you can take! I am praying for you all and if you need a little more encouragement go list to the song ‘What I Know” from the movies God’s Not Dead. It says ‘What I know is you my God are real, no matter how I feel’. Those words are soooo good!
xo , em
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