New Expectations and Realities of College
by Brittany Roach
When I moved from home to go to college, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Long classes, big parties, new friends, and a boyfriend are what I thought I’d be finding. However, I found something different and far greater than these.
The first week was incredibly hard. I missed my mom and my best friend. Being three hours away from home seemed to be my biggest mistake when choosing this school. I was far enough away from home that I knew no one, but I was still close enough that I felt my parents watching over me. Thus, I was a good girl. I felt I had higher expectations to live up to.
It’s not that I didn’t want to go and party; in fact, it was the opposite. Sometimes, the pressure got to me. I had to keep a 3.5 GPA in order to keep my scholarship, but I just wanted to blow off school. I wanted to do everything my parents told me not to. I wanted to drink. I wanted to meet guys. I wanted to go to parties. I would overhear conversations about hot guys and hangovers. I wanted to experience this.
However, the little voice inside my heart said, “Brittany, you have better things to do than be drunk and become friends with people who only respect you for how many shots you can take before passing out.” God was trying to talk with me.
You see, when I was younger, I’d learned from my mom that Jesus died on the cross for my sins so that I could have a relationship with God. She told me I could always talk to Him and if I listened, He would talk back. Now, I realized that my relationship with my Father became distant since moving to college. I hadn’t or talked to Him about how I felt, and I hardly ever listened to Him by reading the Bible, His words to people.
Lying in bed one night, a feeling overcame me. I just wanted to read the bible and pray. I wanted to talk to God, and I wanted to hear from Him. So, that is what I did.
I crawled out of bed at midnight and went in the hall, bible in hand. I flipped the pages and came to Philippians, a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the citizens of Philippi. I read Paul’s words to these people and started to cry. This man had such passion for the Lord. He knew how to follow Him. He knew what life was all about.
“Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life of by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:20,21) Here I was reading about a man who had been beaten and jailed numerous times for his belief that Jesus was the savior. Yet his faith was abundant, his love undying. He wanted to live like Christ, to show people that the Savior lived in him. He wanted to tell people what a joy it is to know Jesus and what love really means.
As I continued to read, I realized I had been trying to fulfill needs that didn’t need fulfilling. It was simple temptation that I needed to overcome, and I needed God’s help to overcome it. I prayed that night for a new faith in Him. I wanted to show others that He lives in me. Not just by telling people about Jesus, but living in a way that reflected my words.
So, it became my mission, and still is today. When I went to college, I discovered who I am in Christ and found out how to live life passionately – by acknowledging and believing that Jesus died and rose again so that I could have a personal relationship and connection with God and experience His power to live.
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