As my college career comes to a close, I can’t help but get emotional over these last three and a half years.
Since enrolling I’ve experienced some of the highlights of my life, celebrated my greatest victories and created lifelong relationships. However, I’ve also faced my biggest challenges, suffered loss and felt like giving up more days than I can count.
It’s been no secret that college hasn’t been easy for me. It’s been no secret that I haven’t particularly enjoyed my time in college. It’s all part of the reason I’ve decided to graduate early. Now the time has come where I can finally close this hard chapter of my life and start anew. It’s time to dust off my shoulders, pick up my head and face the new challenges that come in the ‘real world’.
But before I do that, I think I owe it to myself to look back on these last three and a half years. Examine the good, the bad and the ugly to see that I would go back and tell my freshman self.
The first thing I would tell myself is to get used to change.
Pivot and adapt should be my new motto. Change is inevitable. It’s practically built into human DNA. I, however, hate change. I like life being comfortable and predictable. Unfortunately for me, college was neither of those things.
My biggest change was obvious as I fully expected to graduate from LSU and ended up transferring just nine months after entering. It was hard, uncomfortable and unpredictable. It was all of the things I hate and I projected that upon myself.
I’ve already posted my story on why I left LSU. An update to that story: God’s timing is always perfect. There were heartbreaking things that happened once I enrolled at Auburn and although being at Auburn didn’t make those situations particularly easier, I don’t know how I could have survived them miles away. Just think if I had been enrolled at LSU when COVID-19 hit. I’d either be forced to stay away from home for months or would have been taking online classes, paying out-of-state tuition from my bedroom in Springville.
I still struggle with change and I don’t think it’s ever going to get easier for me. However, I can say college has prepared my mind and my heart for the changes that will inevitably lie ahead.
Secondly, but most importantly, I would remind myself that we’re following the Lord’s will.
I’m still learning to trust the Lord and I know that learning will last a lifetime.
As I mentioned above, leaving LSU was hard. It made me feel embarrassed that I couldn’t finish what I had started. I had people in my life that would bring up the “I told you so” to make it all worst. I really resented how things worked out for, honestly, years. It’s been a difficult mindset to shake.
Whenever I find myself getting down about how things panned out, I look to Proverbs 19:21 - “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Amen.
I think I had a my ‘perfect’ life planned about since I was about 16. Let’s just say all of those so-called ‘perfect’ things didn’t happen. So now I have a new version of perfect and it’s the life I’m living in. Now perfect is a strong word because there are very few things in this world, if any, that truly are perfect. But to me, the fact that my life has fallen into place and I can finally say that I’m happy again is perfect enough to me.
Finally, I would tell myself that she’s so much stronger than she knows.
I’ve always considered myself to be strong: strong-willed, strong-minded. I didn’t realize how strong I would have to be during my college years. Between the change and new plans there was also loss, failures and many hard days.
I’ve grown a lot over three yearn mentally and emotionally. All that growth, strength and knowledge is not my doing but His. Psalm 121 rings so true when it comes to my growth, specifically verse two - “My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”
The Lord guides my heart and hand, he always has and he always will. He has given me the strength to stand on days where I felt I couldn’t. He’s given me the confidence to further my career, take leadership positions and become a woman of God. I’m a strong woman because I am a woman rooted in the Word of the Lord. Without my God and His divine help, I would not be the woman I am today about to graduate college.
College is hard. It’s uncomfortable, strenuous and mentally draining. Yet, it’s still inticing, boundary-pushing and, in short, fun. It’s been a wild three and a half years. I’ve learned so much both inside and outside of the classroom. I’ve developed friendships and relationships. But overall, I did it. I finished what has been some of my biggest challenges. And I did so with the help of my Lord.
Here’s to LSU and Auburn for teaching me so much and here’s to my next chapter.
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