Cedarville Is Blue

On Cedarville's campus, this week is fondly referred to as "hell week." It is the week before finals, and everyone mills around campus as usual, with two exceptions. The once joyous and cheerful faces now exude exhaustion, despair, or just a glazed over blank stare suspiciously resembling a character from an old zombie movie. In addition to this phenomenon, the concentration of students in and near the library increases approximately 66% (a similar increase can noted in the amount of electricity consumed in the dormitories after midnight). I myself have felt melancholy and blue for the past few weeks, and I'm not the only one. Everyone seems to feel this way. I've secretly been planning plausible ways to satisfy my urges to either run away or cry and hide under a blanket for the next ten days. Maybe I can clone myself and then stowaway on a Caribbean cruise line. I'm sure no one would notice.

But I can't run away or hide. I have things to do, people to see. The end of this year is different from freshman year. It is even different from last year. Travel back in time with me to spring 2010, the final culmination of my first year as a university student. I distinctly remember buying a footlong Spicy Italian sub from Subway and sitting on my bed for an entire day during finals week studying for my general chemistry exam. I also remember walking out of that final, meeting my friend Clara by the BTS, and lying down on the grass next to the lake just thinking "It's OVER. We did it!!!" I had never felt such a strong mixture of relief and relaxation. Summer had finally arrived.

Last year, the end of the year came and went without much trauma. After spring semester, I stayed on campus for three weeks and completed a three-credit intensive course during the month of May. Many of my friends attended May term as well, so the year never really ended... we just moved out of Maddox Hall and into McKinney Hall. And when May was over, there were only a few people to say goodbye to.

This year is different somehow. I'm a junior, and for the first time, I have dear friends who are graduating and will not be returning in the fall. No matter how badly I wish everything could just stay the same, I know that next year will be different and there's nothing I can do about it. My gut reaction implores me to forego all forms of academic achievement and enjoy a week and a half of coffee dates, shopping trips, picnics, and movies. But I can't do that. It's hell week. Even if my mountains of schoolwork magically disappeared, the reality is that everyone else has projects and exams to finish too. So where do we stand?

Today's chapel was Senior Class Chapel. Following the painfully boring reflections on Cedarville experiences and advice to underclassman, the band invited all of the seniors up onto the stage at the close of the service as the student body sang Be Thou My Vision. As I looked up onto the stage and stared at the familiar faces of my friends and boyfriend stand on the stage one last time, a wave of sadness but then one of excitement and anticipation washed over me. Yes, Cedarville will be different next year. Yes, all those people will be gone. But they will have gone out into the world equipped to make a difference in the world for the cause of Christ. I have friends graduating and entering fields of business, missions, church ministry, education, marketing, engineering, biological research, social work, etc. The list goes on. I will miss them, but it is right for them to go on! It is right for them to use their gifts, talents, and education to make a difference. One short year from now, it will be my turn to join them and someone else's turn to write a nostalgic piece about the depressing effects of graduation week. Yes, I will miss people. But it would be selfish of me to make them stick around, even if I had such a power.

My message to Cedarville's class of 2012? Make us proud. Choose to be excellent every single day, and inspire those of us who eagerly await our own graduation day. And honor Christ. Choose to be excellent every single day by allowing Him to use you to achieve great things for His eternal kingdom. A college degree is temporary... but heavenly rewards last forever.

NeVer ForgeT: A Memorial

Five years ago today, I remember sitting tensely in my sophomore English class staring at the television screen as we exchanged Shakespearean drama for news footage from Virginia Tech's campus. Three of our friends attended Virginia Tech, the location of the mass shooting that had taken place only minutes before. They had marched proudly across the stage of our tiny Christian school wearing cap and gown eleven months earlier, and were about to finish their first year in Hokieville. We had heard from two of them, but Rachael was still missing. In all the chaos and confusion, however, it was understandable that no one had heard from her. Phone lines were overloaded, and people were running everywhere. And the buzz screamed "The engineering building! He shot people in the engineering building!" Rachael had no reason to be in the engineering building. She must be fine.

All day and night came without any word. But the next morning, when our phone rang at six forty five, I knew the news before I heard it. Rachael was gone, a victim of violence and tragedy. She had no siblings, leaving her parents childless. The girl who had encouraged me, laughed with me, and taught me how to properly set a volleyball never made it past her first year of college. She had such a bright future, with talents and drive to make a significant difference in the world. As I collapsed onto my bed and sobbed into my pillow, I wondered why. Why Rachael?

Today, five years later, I ask a different question. Why anyone? Why did any of those 33 people have to die? Why did Rachael's classmate at our high school struggle through a Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis her senior year? Why did cancer defeat our English teacher, the same wonderful woman who watched that footage and wept with us on April 16, 2007, only a few years later? Today, I recognize something that I did not know at age fifteen. Today, I understand that Satan will stop at nothing to try to curb the work of God's saints. Disease, tragedy, and disaster delight him. Playing with chaos is one of his favorite games. No one is too good for Satan to mess with, not even you. Not even me. But I also know that my Savior is sovereign. He holds the world in his hands, and creation trembles in his presence. I know that He gives us an endless supply of peace, comfort, and strength at the very moments that Satan tries to strip them away.

I noticed that I have not heard anyone mention Virginia Tech today. No one has talked about the five year anniversary of the event that should have never happened. My mission is to remind you of what took place at in Blacksburg, VA on April 16, 2007. Whether my remarks leave you simply reflective or totally teary-eyed,  I want to extend Rachael's impact to as many souls as possible. Because Rachael did make a difference, not only in her life but in her death. Without her death, fewer people would think about God today. Fewer people would pray today. Fewer people would make important decisions to live well today. And fewer people would know God today. Can we at least praise Him for that?

New Day's Resolutions

I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions for two reasons. First, all those bright and enthusiastic promises you make to yourself inevitably lead to disappointment. A few weeks (or months, if you're lucky), you slip back into your old ways, leaving your resolutions to rot in the ditch as you move on with your life. What once seemed like great ideas now seem horribly impossible, and you end up stuck in the old "I really thought I was going to stick to it this time" funk. Just visit your local YMCA once in January and again in April, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

The other reason I don't like New Year's Resolutions is that they provide a marvelous excuse to continue bad habits until January 1 rolls around again. Once your resolutions have suffered untimely deaths from the afore-mentioned fate, you now have numerous weeks and months to relax before you're allowed to try again. Making an annual attempt to change your habits is an unsurprisingly ineffective way to alter your daily routine. Daily life is just that - daily life, not yearly life. So today, I have some New Day resolutions to share with you.

• Check my phone less. I don't even have a smart phone, so no internet/facebook/twitter/angrybirds/templerun/wordswithfriends/yougettheidea. But I still pull it out constantly to check the time, or see if I have any texts that I missed. I should just get a watch. Last night, the vibrate mode stopped working properly... maybe that's a blessing in disguise.
• Spend intentional time with God every day. Whether it be diving deep into a Scripture passage, journaling a prayer, or sitting outside reflecting on the beauty of creation, I want to intentionally grow in my knowledge of God and his character. I say that He is the most important thing in my life, but do I act like it?
• Be on time. I'm late to things so often that late has become the new on time, because everyone expects me to be late. I can usually make it to "important" things on time - for example, I'm rarely late for class. But I always show up late for dinner with friends, etc. Bad habits spread... I want to be more responsible with my time. Plus, I don't want people to always have to wait for me.
• Stop procrastinating. For a while, I worked ahead in all of my classes, and it was wonderful. I completed assignments when I got them and avoided all sorts of stress. It was wonderful. Now that I have less work to do, it's really tempting to put it off. But again, I want to be responsible... and procrastination is a hard habit hard to break.
• Keep track of my spending. Having a debit card is great and terrible at the same time, because I don't have to carry much cash and rarely suffer from arm soreness caused by five extra pounds of dimes and pennies lost at the bottom of my purse... but since I always have money in my account, I don't keep track of how much I spend on what. It hasn't hurt me yet, but in the rapidly-approaching adult world, a lack of budgeting skills will cause a whole mess of problems.
• Read the news. With all the activities and responsibilities cramming into all the space in my life bubble, I don't read articles about what is going on outside my bubble as often as I should. I want to be in an informed citizen, and with all the available information out there, the responsibility to become one falls on my shoulders.

Why did I choose today to make these resolutions? I can't afford to make excuses any more, nor do I desire to make them. I'm quickly realizing that I'm an adult now. A few nights ago, my boyfriend and several other friends joyfully claimed their caps and gowns, their ticket into the real world time-stamped for 23 days from now. I'll be graduating from college in next year, and frankly, there's a lot that has to happen in those 389 days. I have no idea where I will go or what I will do once I walk across the stage in my own cap and gown. But I know that before that happens, some of my habits need to die hard and others need to become much more, well, habitual. And now that I've posted them on the internet, I have to stick to them because they'll never go away. So pray for me on my endeavors, friends. After all, you never know how much time you really have left.

"Never put off until tomorrow (or January 1) what you can do today."

- Thomas Jefferson