I found myself sitting at the bus stop across from the dorm that I lived in Freshman year, Sequoia Hall. I could look straight at the window I called my own, and I looked at the other windows which that year, belonged to some people I love. I looked at the TV lounge and remembered many games. I reminiscenced about the study lounge and all the late night projects, parties, and gatherings. It was there in that building that year so many things manifested…
God created a community consisting of people I love, people whom I still hang out with to this day. It is a community that has been faithful to get together for everyone’s birthday, the game nights, volleyball days, murder mystery Halloween parties, and finals week IHOP gatherings, the last of which we had tonight. It has been a community that has lived well together, and largely a community of people who love the Lord and seek after Him. Two of them got married two months ago, one of whom is one of my dearest friends.
God blessed me with a roommate who remains one of my favorite people ever to this day. By placing me with someone so completely different yet fully compatible with me, I learned much about humor, running life’s race together, unconditional love, and complete acceptance. She’s going to Harvard Grad school for Architecture next year!I remember late nights in my dorm room after finishing my homework, where I would sit in the darkness except for my desk lamp, and journaling into the early morning. The year was so incredibly full, and the Lord brought me so incredibly close to Him. I read some of those entries today, and it reminds me of the importance of knowing our necessity for the Lord…when we are in great need, He is gracious. He loves to make Himself known in the lives of His children. He will provide in unexpected ways.
I
remember laundry room conversations with Elise, the beginning of our friendship and learning about who each other were. We were not well known by each other at the time, but from the beginning of our friendship, we committed to pursuing each other and loving each other as sisters in the Lord. This day, she is one of the best friends I will ever have, and the bond we share is as close as can be experienced in the context of Phileo love.
It was on the second day of living in that dorm that a certain boy, upon his arrival, walked to my door and knocked, as he had said he would. I was immediately intrigued, having only met him the week before. The following evening, we found ourselves talking for four hours straight and knew this was something unusual and special. Over the course of the year and countless hours of talking together, fun adventures with our friends, leading prayer and worship together for a group of believers, and a moonlit hike and noteworthy blog later, we knew we had been given something special in each other. This same face of this boy, now turned man, I will find waiting for me at the end of the aisle just three weeks from today, when I will look in his eyes much like that first day, but this time, I will be his bride…My right bus arrived, giving an interruption to this reflecting, yet providing a catalyst for remembering what has been and what is today. As I sat down and it rolled away from the curb, leaving the dorm behind, I found myself in overwhelming thankfulness…
Who would’ve known that a girl from Colorado, not knowing a soul before going to Cal Poly, would be so incredibly blessed and forever changed by things that could happen within an unassuming brick building? I would not have guessed it myself then. That year has since passed and taken four others with it, and I now find myself 6 days away from graduation, 21 from being married.
And though everything is changing and many things are coming to an end, there is such a God-given peace in the transition…
On the day of June 2nd in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, this is written: “What are you haunted by? You will say—by nothing, but we are all haunted by something, generally by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our experience. The Psalmist says we are to be haunted by God. The abiding consciousness of the life is to be God, not thinking about Him. The whole of our life inside and out is to be absolutely haunted by the presence of God. A child’s consciousness is so mother-haunted that although the child is not consciously thinking of its mother, yet when calamity arises, the relationship that abides is that of the mother. So we are to live and move and have our being in God, to look at everything in relation to God, because the abiding consciousness of God pushes itself to the front all the time..."
As he usually does, Chambers puts into words so well what I wish I could express or didn’t even know I needed to express.
It would be easy for me to be haunted by my experiences over the last five years of college. There are so many memories. Yet as I sat on the beach at Montana de Oro with Elise today, I found myself in realization of what continues to prevail in my heart…the overwhelming presence of God. The grace of God…the faithfulness of God…the mercy of God…the blessings of God…the sovereignty of God…the thankfulness for a life lived with such a wonderful God. He has given the last five years. Rather than cling onto them tightly now, I wish to give them up as a praise offering to our Lord, that He may be known and glorified through what He has established and done.
The first day in the dorm, there was no way for me to possibly fathom what was to happen in the five years to come. Today, at the cusp of another new beginning in life, there is still no way I can possibly fathom or fully prepare for what is to come. Yet, in this still night, there is a recognition of something that has happened in between the beginning and end of this season…
"...If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in, no cares, no tribulation, no anxieties. We can see now why Our Lord so emphasized the sin of worry. How can we dare be so utterly unbelieving when God is round about us? To be haunted by God is to have an effective barricade against all the onslaughts of the enemy. ‘His soul shall dwell at ease.’ In tribulation, misunderstanding, slander, in the midst of all these things, if our life is hid with Christ in God, he will keep us at ease. We rob ourselves of the marvelous revelation of this abiding companionship of God. ‘God is our refuge’-nothing can come through that shelter."
The blessings of abiding companionship of the Lord have graciously been manifested. Though I know so little of what to do and what is to be in this next season of life—post-college; beginnings of marriage; new city, career, and community/ministry, I have come to learn that the Lord is my refuge and nothing can come through that shelter.
And best concluded by another favorite author, Elisabeth Elliot…
"Almighty God, you alone can bring order to the unruly wills and affections of sinners: grant your people grace to love what You command and desire what You promise; that among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found, through Christ Jesus, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, amen."
Amen.
