Next Semester

I just finished my first semester at United and am looking forward to the next one! If you had asked me about that six weeks ago, my answer would probably have been different. I wasn’t sure that there would be a second semester. I loved United from day one, and everyone has been warm and welcoming. However, I felt scared and unsure, like I didn’t quite fit in. It’s been so long since I’ve sat in an actual classroom. Keeping up with the reading was a challenge, trying to take notes as fast as the professor spoke made my fingers cramp, and attempting to participate in the classroom discussions in a semi intelligent fashion was intimidating!

In the midst of the educational process, I also had to go back to court over divorce issues. Being a full-time, working, single parent is hard enough, then add going back to school and worrying about court… well I just felt really out of place and lonely… pretty much on emotional overload.
I didn’t even pick up the paperwork to register for the next semester of classes. I wasn’t sure I could afford it and felt on the fringe of things. I was having a good old pity party. One day, a classmate asked me during the break from our lecture what I was taking next semester. I made a lame excuse about not picking up the paperwork yet, still trying to make up my mind… yada yada yada… then headed on down the hall. Later, as we prepared to take notes again, he hands me a stack of papers. “Here,” he said, “I picked these up for you to fill out because we want you back here next semester.”

He had no way of knowing how lonely and isolated I’d been feeling, and yet God used him to remind me that I belonged. A few days later, I learned that I’d received scholarship money, so there went that excuse as well. It seems like God is looking out for me, even when I have doubts and fears and worries, even when I’m feeling stuck in an emotional quagmire. I placed my trust in Him quite a while back, but it’s like trying to stand one-legged in a yoga position… I can do it, but my own confidence gets shaky and I keep putting my foot down so I don’t fall over and look like a dork. I don’t always trust in yoga that I have the strength to do a move, and then I fall over. I’m like that with God too, not trusting in His strength to uphold me, so I fall over. However, unlike yoga, God doesn’t leave me laying on the ground. He picks me up, as many times as I fall, He picks me up. And despite my dorkiness, God loves me and reminds me that I’m included. I’m included in this wonderful United community, and I’m included in His kingdom as His precious daughter.

I haven’t talked to my own daughters in several days. They are away and I worry about them. When I don’t hear from them, my thoughts can torment me, and I remember things from my past. It’s times like these when I feel lonely, and the Accuser attempts to beguile me into joining that pity party again. I hear that old tape of hurtful words that scratches at the surface of old wounds. Even though logically I know better, it is at times like these when it seems like everyone else has it together when I don't. I am thankful for all the reading I had to do this semester. When I was preparing for my final paper, I read a book called Adam by Henri Nouwen. In it he says of Adam, a severely handicapped young man, “Adam was sent to bring Good News to the world. It was his mission, as it was the mission of Jesus. Adam was-very simply, quietly, and uniquely-there! He was a person, who by his very life announced the marvelous mystery of our God: I am precious, beloved, whole, and born of God. Adam bore silent witness to this mystery, which has nothing to do with whether or not he could speak, walk, or express himself, whether or not he made money, had a job, was fashionable, famous, married, or single. It had to do with his being. He was and is a beloved child of God. Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us.”

Thank you United community for accepting me as one of your own, and thank you Jesus for loving me just as I am!