Deciding to Come Home
For the Summer of 2014
As my freshman year of college was coming to a close, I sat
down with my co-worker Dana and she told me about summer camps that the YMCA
offered and the amount of pay I would receive if I were to coach over the
summer. She highly suggested that I find a place to live over the summer and
stay up in Ypsilanti over the break. The idea sounded great! The only thing
that had been keeping me in Perrysburg for the summer was once Tyler, but that
was over and I really didn’t need to be near him anyway. My best friend was
going off to camp to work there, and all my other friends were either getting
married, having kids or a combination of the two.
It seemed that it was going to work out perfectly. I was
planning on buying a car from a family friend in a couple weeks, I could take
my car and then sublease from someone and my summer would be set! I could visit
my family and friends every other weekend (if I was off) and just hang out with
the team in my free time! My life had so quickly been rebuilt in Ypsilanti and
it would only make sense that I stay there for the summer. My team was there,
my job was there, and my home was suddenly there. However in the weeks following,
I found myself at home for Easter, Interviews (incase I came home for the
summer) and to buy my van.
In those times home, I did what I typically do while I am
home. Hung out with old friends, and went to Dayspring, the church that I have been
growing up in for the last fourteen years. While at Dayspring, I realized that
I had been really depriving myself of church. Studying God’s word and listening
in on sermons in my dorm on Sunday’s was not doing enough for the healing
process; and to be honest, my heart was not into it. I just wanted to stop
being scared of relationships and always feeling hurt. However, I knew needed
to be at church and in fellowship. I needed to be attending church on Wednesday
nights, Friday nights and Sunday mornings; I needed to be involved in a life
group.
This became more obvious with every Sunday I spent at home
before school was out.
Now I’m going to be completely honest, my amount of friends
at church at that point in time was at an all time low. There were people I had
grown up with for years, but I never really had the opportunity to get close to
them. All of the people that I had become close with had left for different
churches my freshman and sophomore years of high school. It’s not their fault,
but after they left I never really recovered in the friends department, and for
a while, I was okay with it. As long as I was still attending my parents life
group, and going to the services and actually participating in worship I would
be okay. I didn’t really need any friends. I had all the friends I needed.
I knew Dayspring was where I needed to be, with every
passing Sunday God just kept telling me in different ways that I needed to be
back for the summer. At first I had ignored it but it became even more evident,
when I started running out of time to pack up the room, and search for a place
to live for summer break. I had my job, gymnastics practices, I found that I
was spending a lot of time figuring things out to take care of the financial
side of things, and then there were final exams coming up. My classes last
semester were kicking my butt and I knew that I needed to do well on my exams
otherwise my GPA could be in trouble.
With about two weeks left of school, I called my Dad and
asked the awful question, “could my room be in the basement if I clean it up,
and come home this summer?” He said yes, and with that I stopped looking for a
place to live, which crossed one more thing off of my busy schedule.
When I told everyone that I was just going home for the
summer, they looked at me and asked why they knew things about life at home,
and they knew that home was probably the last place I wanted to be. I just told
them that I needed to be back at my church, I was still hurt from the Tyler
situation and I needed to stop ignoring the pain and deal with it. Even then,
they did not understand, and I knew they wouldn’t understand if I told them,
“God told me I needed to be at Dayspring this summer.” Nobody really understood
my need to be back at church, and to a point I didn’t either, but I was going
with it anyway.
Once I had decided to come home for the summer, things
seemed to line up very quickly. Bethany and I had nearly finished cleaning my
section of the basement on the last weekend I was home. I got a call from my
boss Randi, offering me my current job, everything with my car went over
smoothly, and on my final day in Ypsilanti, I had my van with me to pack up and
drive home. It was a pretty smooth transition and honestly it could not have
been any easier!
Although I already missed sharing a room with Bailee…
(Our Matching Sweaters… Oops!)
I was already missing my crazy team, and everything they stood for and meant to me. Many of them had been there when no one else was, and I was already saying goodbye to people who had become so close to me so quickly…
and all those memories were already fading, the smell of our room was already leaving my cloths and blankets.
(Our Empty Room Put Back Together)
Freshman year was already in the past, but I was
ready to see what God had in store for my summer!
I could just picture it on the way home from Ypsilanti,
dinners with my life group, the Fourth of July spent with my family, hanging
out with my best friends, visiting Chloe at camp, going up to the lake randomly
on weekends. It would be great!
But sometimes things don’t always go the way you picture
them, sometimes God has other things in mind.
-Becca
No comments:
Post a Comment