Community at Its Finest

Three years ago I was on my way to Pensacola Christian College for my Freshman year. I was totally unaware of what the next few years would hold ahead of me but I was fully excited for the unknown future I had then. I started my college career as a Business Management major, made the Dean’s list, and played volleyball and soccer for my collegian (PCC’s version of a sorority). Playing intercollegiate sports was my greatest joy that year as the school’s size made the sports even at the intercollegiate level competitive.

Second semester of my Freshman year, I added Marketing to my major to make myself a double major, played basketball for my collegian (Pi Delta Rho), and got selected as Secretary of that collegian for the Fall semester of 2017. Things were looking up. I had settled well into the community at PCC. I was involved, growing, and loving the classes I was taking; however, something was missing…All my friends as they were on breaks from their various colleges, including my PCC friends, could not wait to return to school. I on the other hand was actually more happy on breaks than I was attending college. I desired to have that home feeling at my college where being at school was more enjoyable than being home. Isn’t that what college is supposed to be anyways? Are you not supposed to have so much fun at college that being home is just not as fun as being at college?

I asked myself that throughout the summer of 2017. I was confused as to why a college God called me to would not be a place I was dying to go back to. Although PCC was an amazing experience for me, there was SOMETHING missing, and at the time I was unable to wrap my head around the specifics.

On July 7, 2017, I applied to Clarks Summit University for their Business program and I received my acceptance letter on July 17, 2017 which was a month shy of the date I would be needed on campus for the volleyball team’s preseason. I must have been crazy right? I mean that’s what people said to me. You see, all of my college supplies were being stored at PCC for the summer and I had no access to them until the semester started at PCC, which was a week after I needed to be at Clarks Summit University. Again, I say, I must have been crazy as I had never visited CSU before AND my education expenses tripled in my transferring of schools. All I was going off of was a desire to have something more out of my education! Would that desire lead me to something worth while? There was just something different about my perception of Clarks Summit University as opposed to PCC. I did not know what it was at the moment; but, I had this feeling deep in my soul that it WOULD be different!

Insert photo of me as a Senior

Yesterday, I began my Senior year at Clarks Summit University where I have studied for the past two years. Over the last couple of years here, I have experienced understanding more and more of what makes this college different than my experience at my first college. That difference was first seen in the community here at CSU!

1. Community is at the center of all that they do here and it makes growing in passion and love for not only Christ but pursuing your best self easier than I have ever experienced. People here do not lie about themselves being perfect; but, they come along side you admitting they are a mess too. They come along side you aware of the mess they are and the mess you are but CHOOSE to love you anyways. We are all a mess; but, that does not make us less qualified to be a loving community member. It only makes us more capable of understanding the faults we each have and sin tendencies each human being has because of their sin nature.

Romans 3:23 (ESV) "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

2. The Community at CSU doesn't try to make you something you aren’t but embraces your unique calling and design from God. They value your particular role in the body of Christ. With PCC it was a “fit in my box” mentality where they emphasized God having a calling for each person unique to them; but, they did not make the community one where people struggling would be comfortable opening up in fear of being judged, looked down upon, or punished. CSU helps you find what God created you for! There are people you are designed to reach because of who God made you and CSU understands that better than any place I have been.

God is more creative than us all having one purposed major, job, thinking processes, or personality. He intricately designed you for a purpose and we must not try to fit someone else into a box of what we see as the image they should be. CSU makes sure that the community here is one that people can freely open up about mistakes, struggles, and tendencies both past and present. Instead of preaching to you how wrong and sinful you are they walk WITH you as you pursue a more righteous life.

Psalm 139:14-16 (ESV)

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a] Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

The community at CSU has been a key factor to my growth emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The dorm life of living with various women going through similar things as we face adulthood through college life, the coaches that I have had the pleasure of playing for who push me past the walls I put up that hold myself back, and the mentors I have been able to allow to pour into me as I walk through the daily tasks that I face have each been used by God to make me a whole different woman now than I was when I first stepped foot on a college campus.

What a ride these three years of college have been. Many lessons in and out of the classroom have been learned. I changed from Business Management to Counseling in the second semester of my Sophomore year and I have yet to regret that decision. Through my experience of college I have learned more than I can fit into one paragraph or even one book; but, the main lessons have been the importance of community, the love of God being greater than I will ever be able to comprehend, God's grace is enough for me, and I CAN trust Him with all aspects of my life physically, mentally, emotionally, and even financially. Wherever you are led, know that God will not bring you to something without giving you the strength through His people and His power to do just what He has led you to do! It is not about us! It is not about what we are capable of; but, fully about what God is capable of. We are just the vessels He chooses to use for the greater good of the world around us.

God provided the community I needed WHEN I needed it! He provided finances for me RIGHT as they are due, challenging my trust and faith in His provision! He has comforted me in all of my college experiences through His word and His people! So, keep pushing past hardships! Keep pursuing God's plan for your life! Ultimately, trust Him to supply for you all you need to get to where you need to be! One. day. at. a. time.

Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,

plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.