An Honest Look

Week one at the "new college" is ending. Some days it feels more like a month. Already we are slipping into routines, and figuring out "how things work." For example, in the all girls dorm where I live, Mayfield, we have all learned when you flush the toilets, you must yell, "Hot Water!" if someone is taking a shower. Then those in the shower are to respond with a, "Thank you!" Sometimes, however, we forget. This is not a good thing.

Another thing we've learned is that checking your mail-box is a full time job. Once we learn to open them, we come up with excuses to pass by the student center so we can check our mail... several times a day. Usually we press our face against our box and squint our eyes to see if we have any "gold" and either groan or jump up and down and say, "I have mail! There's something in my mailbox!" This week we've been standing around mailboxes in clusters, trying to help each other get them open. (There really is a trick!) Most of the things we do usually earn us a snicker or a smirk from the upperclassmen who are observing our little charades. One day we were standing in line at the bookstore, chattering and discussing our plans for the day and the next class, when a woman standing in line behind us summed us up in one word when she inquired, "Freshmen?" The girls I was with laughed and nodded politely, and I just smiled right along with them. I feel like a freshmen all over again some days. But that's not all bad. :)

Going to college at a far away place offers many opportunities to learn new things. Not all of these lessons are pleasant, however. This last week has been intense. It's been a time of excitement, homesickness, inspiration... and exhaustion. It's been amazing to sit in class and listen to a teacher pray, to sit on the floor of a dorm room with a group of girls worshiping with nothing but a guitar and our simple songs. I've had moments of inspiration while singing a song in chapel, moments of pure excitement when I get a chance to sit and have a meaningful conversation with a new friend. I've also had moments of frustration over the apparently instantaneous relationships some girls seem to have made with the guys on campus. We've been here a week and already we see couples walking around campus holding hands. There have been moments of adjustment, which everyone is going through at the same time as we learn to live with someone else.

The hardest lesson I have been faced with in all of this, however, has not been one from a book. The hardest thing for me to swallow so far is seeing myself as I really am. I have discovered I am not half as mature as I hoped I was, not as selfless, and definitely not as devoted. There is no hiding in a new place like this. All the rubbish (as we call it here in Mayfield in honor of the "rubbish bins" where our trash goes) in my heart that had been nicely decorated has been brought out into the open. The decorations gone, I feel very much like Isaiah, "Woa is me! ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Isaiah 6:5.

There have been a few times I have felt overwhelmed by my complete unworthiness, by the image I saw when then veil was ripped away. "What am I doing here Lord? I am not worthy to even speak your name. My heart is so desperately unclean. I'm not even worthy to speak your name. Woa is me!"

One day as I was working through some of this in my mind, I opened my Bible to read the next few verses in the chapter I had been reading the previous day in Hebrews. "And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons; 'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves..." Hebrews 12:5-6. Truthfully, something in me always groans when I read this passage, because I don't want to be disciplined! Who does? But this time as I read these words, I had a different picture in my mind. It seemed as if God was wrapping me in his arms, even as I felt my heart being pierced with the painful revelation of who I really am. Rather than a frowning dictator standing over me, shaking his head in disappointment at my failure, it seemed God was assuring me, "Even this is a sign of my love for you. I already know you from the inside out, and I love you."

We sang a song in chapel last night, and there was one line that caught my attention. It went something like this, "I want to be Yours from the inside out." I'm sure those aren't the exact words, but the meaning has stayed with me. What a great thing to pursue, today and for the rest of my life; learning to love God from the inside out.

If this is what it takes to get there, then so be it Lord. Help me cooperate with your training program. Father, I am so unworthy, but You already knew that when You took a hold of my heart strings and drew me to Yourself. I am a slow learner God. I feel like I am still learning some of the same lessons over an over. Thank you for your patience. And thank you for putting us in the middle of circumstances in which we have no choice but to go back or grow... and going back is not an option. Yes, thank you even for Your discipline, for it is also a present reminder of Your infinite love for us. Help me learn what you want me to here Lord. Teach me to love you from the inside out, with a pure heart.