There is always a lesson to be learned, with or without a textbook...

College has been interesting so far. I’ve learned more than expected and grown more than imagined.

Of course academically my mental capacity has been test to the extreme and I’m starting to perfect the infamous college “cramming” and “all-nighters”. My classes are thankfully interesting, and I am loving my two majors more and more every day. I’m still completely clueless as to what I want to do with my life. I have absolutely no idea what my future holds, but I know time will tell where God is calling me with respect to my career path.
Putting aside Grove City's "rigorous academics", what is even more amazing is that I am watching God work and move in my personal life. I have seen His hand in my relationships with strangers, acquaintances, new friends, old friends, family, and most importantly Him.

I am so glad to say that my confidence is now deeply and completely found in my Abba, my one source of ultimate truth, my love, my God.

"For the Lord will be your confidence"
Proverbs 3:26a

 Calvary on Campus (although I wasn’t there, I did get to watch it online!) did a really cool thing; people from the church shared their “cardboard testimonies”. Written on one side of a piece of cardboard was their life without God and on the flip side was their testimony of life with God.

My cardboard testimony would simply be this:

Once a people pleaser to the extreme. Now trying to please the only one that matters.

I used to have trouble saying no. I worried what people thought more often than I cracked open my bible. I compared myself to others superficially instead of loving on everyone that I encountered. I had to make everyone happy and in my mind I was still a failure.  As my one friend would say... I always “got down and pooped on myself”. I didn’t see it and I was great at denying it.
 God has softened and opened my heart during my first months at college to see that what really matters is Him.
There is no doubt that it has been a process. Learning lessons from God doesn’t always happen overnight. But I have realized my security cannot be torn down or rebuilt by a guy. My confidence cannot be expressed by the clothes I wear. My personal acceptance does not fluctuate with the invitations from exclusive friend groups. I find myself in God. His never changing, always loving nature is my constant Rock.

"The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."
Psalm 18:2

My prayers have shifted. I pray for his wisdom and knowledge. I pray for his ability to love. I pray for humility, comfort and opportunity. I thank Him. I pray for the ones I have met and the ones I have yet to meet. I pray for clarity of his plan instead of the proper execution of mine. I pray for my heart and life to reflect and please him.
I am without a doubt imperfect. Compared to God no one will even come close to perfection, so we should stop trying to be this unattainable flawlessness. Instead we should turn away from the evident satanic saturation of our minds, and run into the arms of the only thing that was, is, and always will be perfect.
I cannot express how awesome it has been to surrender everything to God, to experience a freedom from earthly bondage. The beauty of people working for the betterment of His kingdom will consume the ugliness of self-righteousness.  If we strive to please Jesus, then subsequently we will be pleasing others too.