So about a year ago I started thinking about what every high school senior starts to think about: what I wanted to do with "my life." (Also known as what I am going to do after high school). The what (college) was easy, the where was the bigger question, and so the search for the "right" college began. In this search I learned a few things:
- The search for the right college is very public. It's as if the conveying of your grade is an open invitation to a game of twenty questions... in fact, life itself will not go on unless you reveal any and all places of interest, your intended major, your scholarship efforts, and whether or not you plan to live at home or in a dorm.
- The actual process of searching is probably one of the more asinine things in this grand ol' world. Colleges can effectively be split up six ways: two year or four year, cheap or expensive, liberal arts or science/math geared. Beyond that the prospective students are left to sift through thousands of brochures, emails, letters, phone calls, and websites to find the right college. Let's just be honest, finding the right college is one big research project.
- Finding the right college is worth every ounce of hard work you put in. It just is. You may sweat, cry, grow discouraged, and want your mama but finding that college that works with you and invites you to feel at home justifies all the thumb sucking.
So after months of looking I found the college my heart desperately wanted to go to: William Jessup University. There was just one tiny problem... it was private and therefore more expensive. To say that finances are tight in my family is like calling a tornado a slight breeze. Not realizing it then, I took a risk and asked God for something He had every right to deny.
I don't know how many of you do this, but over the past few months I realize that most of what I ask God for is easy to answer stuff, and if it doesn't happen then I can blame it on myself or some other outside factor. I don't have to risk hearing God say "no." What i mean is, my prayers usually go something like this:
"God please bless _______", "Jesus help me pass this test", "Lord teach me patience with ______", etc.
None of them put anything on the line. None of them take risks. All of those prayers, though important to pray, are safe. If I fail the test, it is because I didn't do or know enough. God didn't say no. What I am really saying in that instance, is that it is my inadequacy that kept me from passing, it was not God's answer. See if God's answer is no, that challenges my faith, it forces me to choose to obey and continue loving a God who didn't pass me in trigonometry. (Oh tragedy!)
But in the summer, I came to a scary realization: there was nothing I could do that would enable me to go to Jessup. Nothing. There were simply too many obstacles. Dismayed I got down on my knees and I asked God that if this was His will for me that He would make it happen. I asked Him to give me a miracle. And as I prayed, my prayers grew ever more risky. I begged Him to move hearts to acceptance, I pleaded with Him to open doors that were nailed shut, and I beseeched Him to provide the funds to pay for it. I became vulnerable, God could say no, He could choose to send me another way and my faith and obedience would be tested.
I prayed and I waited, until finally one-by-one heart's began to change. Not every heart, but enough of them to lend me encouragement and hope. So I sent in my application and I waited. Then I received my acceptance package and a scholarship offer and saw, still, more hearts change. Then doors and obstacles fell away, as though they weren't really there at all. Finally, in this past week I visited Jessup and I handed my admissions counselor my housing deposit. I will be attending Jessup come fall!
While on the campus I was praying with a friend and God called me to, once more, pray boldly. He called me to ask for a full funding, so I timidly requested that He provide the full $25,000 in one way or another. Afterwards I met with financial aid and learned some very dismaying news, my financial aid application had been rejected and unless I got a parent signature I wouldn't be eligible for anything more than the scholarships I'd already received. In a matter of seconds, I convinced myself of the impossibility of the situation – my mom hates that I am going out of state and would not willingly sign anything that would make it easier for me to leave! My heart grieved! I had been bold and vulnerable and my God had disappointed me! Something inside of me mourned! I felt my dream dying quickly before my eyes... and then something inside of me said "ask again." I was repulsed! Was God some kind of mean bully? That He would have me open my heart again, so that He could stab me once more?!?! But this is my God, my Savior, my Father... I had to obey. So I sat with my friend once more and asked "God please find me the full funding to attend Jessup, and change my mothers heart so that she would sign this paperwork without too much fighting?" That night I called my mother and mentioned the financial aid aspect and without fighting she agreed to look into getting a pin number.
I cannot say these past few months have been easy, but I can tell you that they have been exciting and a story worth telling! So, step one to living boldly – pray boldly! Prayers are the desires of the heart. If your prayers are mundane and safe, your heart will be mundane and safe. Take a risk, thrive on some adrenaline and realize that the possibility of injury is what makes life exciting! So maybe it would be safer to not jump off the bridge into the freezing water below, but life would be a lot more interesting if you did jump! Lesson one: bold means risky, so living boldly means living risky!
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