Part 7
There was a travel
weekend where everyone went away. I was looking forward to a relaxing time on
my own, watching movies and reading, though I was a little worried about how I
might react, being alone for so long after being with my roommates all the
time. But I had confidence in how much I had changed and grown. The weekend
started out great but then I got some very bad news from home and suddenly I
was alone in my room, dealing with this news.
For a moment,
everything I had learned, all the growing up I had done, seemed to be stripped
away from me and I felt thrown back to square one, once again the person I was
when I was at home. I had no one to go to and everything felt so entirely
hopeless.
Desperately, I went out to walk the Loop and sit with God by the
pond, just to try and calm down. It was steadily growing darker but I walked as
quickly as I could out to the pond, tears pouring down my face. And I sat by
the pond for a long time, mind racing at all the possible bad things that could
happen and then suddenly the strangest calm filled me, the “peace that passes
all understanding”. I’ve never felt anything quite like that before or since,
just complete peace when I should have been freaking out. It was such a cool
moment of God taking care of me, especially when there was no one else around.
(Later on I heard more news about the bad news and it wasn’t as bad as was
first thought.)
Part 8
Christmas break was
where The Change happened. All of first term, I was shy and dealing with a lot
of personal things with God and I found it difficult to talk with a lot of
people. Participating in the group events was also hard but I see now that
during first term, that was alright because I had a lot of inner growth to do
first.
At Christmas break,
almost everyone went travelling or went home. About 60 of us stayed on at the
Hall to work, which I chose to do (I didn’t think I’d survive that many plane
trips back and forth). All the female volunteers got moved to The Zoo, a
fantastically magical place where new friendships were made and a good many
movies and computer games happened.
It was my first
Christmas being away from my family and I knew it was going to be hard. I knew
I would have to rely closely on God every single moment to get me through, to
provide for every little thing. And the awesome thing was that He totally did.
The one event that
sticks out the most to me from that time was a few days into the break. I was
feeling very lonely and was sitting on my bed, journaling and praying. I was
going to write “God, I’m feeling really lonely right now” but I had just gotten
to writing “God, I’m feeling really” when all of a sudden, two friends I had
only really talked to a day before or so peeked around the corner and sat down
and we talked for ages, laughing and just having a good time. After that, the
three of us hang out a lot and I made two very good friends who I am so
thankful for.
Surprisingly, that
was one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had. Sure, I had to do work in the
kitchens and I was far away from my family and it was nothing like my idea of
Christmas but it was so much fun. We played a computer game for four hours that
afternoon, alternately laughing and screaming and then later we served the
guests and had an awesome Christmas party. And that was my Christmas, nothing
like I imagined but maybe even better.
And Christmas break
was where I changed. First term was where I dealt with inward things and the
break was when I shifted from this shy anxious little girl to a social,
energetic woman. It was way easier for me to socialize with my classmates
because there were less of them around and my courage grew. By the time
everyone else came back, I was able to socialize with everyone. I was running
around all the time from one person to the other, hanging out, going on
adventures and I felt like a completely different person, the person I really
was supposed to be.
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