So. I’m done with college. Almost. I walked on Saturday and although it didn’t feel like anything up to the point of it, as I stood before the stairs leading up to the stage of the GLC auditorium, I felt my heart thump inside of my chest. “”Oh my God. I can’t believe this is happening.” It felt so surreal since the biggest and the only focus I really had was my family.
My family came on the 14th (a Thursday) before my graduation to spend time with me and to venture around my school since they’ve never done it before in the eight years that both my brother and I had spent at Tech. It was so so so stressful and I kept experiencing strains in my chest and heart region because I was so worried, tense, and anxious about my parents lack of salvation and thus clarity when I tried to talk to them about missions. I held onto so much anger about the past that God has recently brought up that I still could not forgive them for the present and the present changes God has made in them. I was also so tired and sad about these past four years when I half reflected on them because they were so painful. Truly, they were very memorable because I will never forget the path the I had agreed to when I gave my heart to God on that very second Sundy of my Sophomore year at school. I will never forget how closely God kept near to me and how He really was all I had. It was such a lonely and trying time with so much heartache, heartbreak, torment, anguish, despair. I still remember all those times where I would be grasping in the dark for air, gripping my chest because God was taking me to such scary places in my heart. All those nights where I would hide behind my bed in my room in dark so my family wouldn’t hear me. Or when I would lock myself in the bathroom in the dark and on the floor. All those times where I would hear the wailing of my soul deafen me from the inside. All those times I cried silently at home and kept quiet. All those hours I would stair at the ceiling and zone out, wishing I was somewhere in the wild. Somewhere where I would have peace. Dead.
I remember Him asking me to Trust. I remember Him letting me know He didn’t want to hurt me, that He was gentle, that He was there. All those times where I felt like He wasn’t. That He really did care. That He really did have compassion for me. That He really does understand me. That He really does love. me.
All I can do when I can’t believe it is look at Him on the cross. And then I get so sad. Sad because all of that that happened to me in the past still doesn’t change but that He really did suffer all the pain in the world and does know how I feel. And I am devastated by my lack of faith and His great love.
“Accelerate growth, that is what I hear for you,” Oscar told me after I shared a little bit of my story with him. Tears came to my eyes as I stared hard into his; my jaws clenched as I tried to maintain composure. That’s what these past four years have been. It’s hard to find a peer, someone my age and my sex, to grow with me because I’m sprouting like a beanstalk. I don’t get everything that other people get, but I’m really getting fed and I’m trying to encourage everybody to grow fast with me too. It gets lonely when I can’t see the other beanstalks around me and most of them that I have been blessed to meet and understand me are so much older, twice my years. I feel like a fast growing child yet still a child.
I’m going to post what I have now because Willis asked if I was done yet. =P
