Do you remember your first day here on campus? How about your move-in day?
Maybe you just moved in a week ago, or maybe you’re here an extra year than you initially planned due to switching your major five times.
We may have pleasant memories of these events. Are yours cringe-worthy due to your awkwardness? Perhaps you still feel the sting of realizing you are now in a new place with new faces, and you wonder how on earth you’ll fit in.
My point is this: we all come from somewhere. We all have different backgrounds; our stories are nowhere near the same.
Phillippians 1:6 (ESV) says this: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Whether or not you are a believer, the Bible tells us that we are created in the image of God, which means our desires, our dreams, and our personalities are all from the Father. Not only does He know them, He placed them within in us, and His dreams for us are so much greater than those we have for ourselves.
So much of my twenty odd years of living, I believed that life is a lot about searching and knowing who we are. Particularly in college, this is such an easy trap to fall into. However, after some time, that belief morphed into the realization that who we are is already formed. In every season, especially this college-aged time, the traits we could not see before are unveiled.
Sadly, I know there are some students here on our campus who feel as if they have no purpose and feel like they don’t mesh in this community. Some of us have found that this is where we belong and where we can be who we are.
So, how then can we compensate for both?
Personally, I think we just need to stop and remember our experiences that can be painful. Stop and recognize that maybe, just maybe, at some point or another we have all felt the same. We are being transformed into HIS likeness. Let’s make a vow to embrace our differences. Let’s make a promise to listen and make others feel known.
What if we met each other where we are by trying to understand where we’ve been?
As we look on to where we are going, let us walk alongside each other through the muck of the past and the unknown of the present.
Whether you’re a fifth year senior or a freshman, it’s inevitable: we all start from somewhere.
[author image=”http://echo.snu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/20617242_1655042497863660_2403683625479291208_o.jpg”]Sydney Jones, Staff Photographer
Sydney Jones is a Junior Mass Communication Major and Music Minor from the tiny, Texas town of Wellington. She is serving as a second year Resident advisor this school year. Though she has undergone some major growth since her Freshman year at SNU, she admits her slight infatuation with John Mayer and ice cream has never wavered. Sydney loves the Lord and her family immensely, and even though she is excited for the future, she admits she will never truly “want to grow up.”[/author]