Hello! Did you miss me? Should I dare ask that question? Partly because I feel like my little corner has been forgotten about because it’s been left vacant for too long.  I’ve tried to sit down and write something deep and thoughtful, but honestly? I feel like every thought that I try to spill out onto this blank white sheet of computer space doesn’t sound right.  I feel like everything I write is just a bunch of empty, scattered words.

Summer break has come to a sad goodbye because school has finally begun.  Funny how three months feels like a long stretch of time but once it’s over with you wonder where summer went and why didn’t you enjoy it more?  I spent my last couple weeks of break in Colorado.  My entire summer I felt had been centered around going to Summit, a Christian worldview conference in Manitou Springs.  When the day finally arrived to go…I honestly didn’t want to.  Maybe my nerves were getting to me.  I mean, seriously, I’m the type of person who needs motivation just to get out of her PJs in the morning or anything that has socializing involved.

I arrived at Summit and knew absolutely no one.  I looked at the heavy schedule they placed in front of us and felt like two weeks was going to be an eternity before I could go back home. Because home is familiar.  I know what to do and where to go and who my people are.  Mealtime was especially stressful since you had to pick a table to sit at and you didn’t know the people sitting there.  My introverted side was getting the best of me, but then I got to know my roommates. Suddenly the people in the cafeteria became my classmates.  We were all here for one thing and that was to grow in Christ.  I never before have been surrounded by such brilliant minded students, speakers and staff.  By graduation, I didn’t want to leave the old hotel in Manitou.  Even now, it seems like an entirely different world, a small corner where you can just feel Jesus in every corner and crevice of it’s old structure.

I know it sounds a little cheesy to say this…but I felt like I lost myself over the course of two years.   I graduated high school and started college; I went from one major to the next; tried all sorts of different classes; landed new jobs…I forgot who I was in Christ.

It’s such a terrible thing to be lost…but it’s so-so sweet to be found.

It’s not about the majors, the jobs…goodness, it’s not even about yourself.  Life is such a generalized series of events.  We grow up, we graduate high school, we choose a major, we graduate college, we get a job that we kind of sorta like, have a family, retire…then die.

At least that was the conversation I overheard by two students today while waiting for class to start.  “Who cares how long your in college, heck, people go and get there masters and then change their minds.  You might as well stay in college as long as you can because then after that you have to start real life, get a job and then die.”

Ah, how wrong is this person behind me? I thought.  How pointless.  How dumb.  Why on earth are we here if we are just meant to die and turn to dust?

The sad fact is, I fell into this lie.  It’s a strange thing, we pay all this money to go to college and get a bachelors, then a masters, and keep extending our time in college to avoid “real life”, as if college is a safety net that we cling to before we are forced to fall into reality.  I fell into the lie that life is about these series of events where death is the ultimate outcome.  I look back on my life and it isn’t so simple, it never was intended to be, nor will it ever be.

Death is the ultimate outcome.

But it’s not our eternity.

My eternity is in Heaven.  What I do on this earth should be a reflection of Christ; my entire mindset should be only to glorify Him in all that I do. Sadly though, I get blinded by my own desires and personal gain. I kept choosing majors that I hoped would give me security and stability. Why do I seek comfort from this world when it only greets me with empty words and promises? Here is the finer things in life, where all of your troubles will be solved.  But I find that the higher I step on the ladder, it gives me more burdens then the previous steps.

But then I went to Summit.  I realized that I don’t want stability and comfort that the world has to offer, but that I want the stability and comfort that can only be found in Christ.

I want truth.

I want Jesus.

I have this unsatisfied curiosity now that I don’t know how, nor do I want, to quench, thanks to Summit.

Someone once told me that there is no point in trying to change the world because people don’t change.

But then, what is the point in anything?  What is the point in healing the sick when we are just going to die?  What is the point in fixing anything when it’s inevitably going to break again?

What I’m saying is this…

Death is not our eternity (which I stated earlier).

That is why we should care…we should care about the souls inside the bodies.  The sick, the poor, the world and all of the souls it contains.  We should fight for the lives of the innocent.  We should stand up against controversial issues and laws made that go against our Christian morals and beliefs.

As Christians we are called to be the light in the dark, and to lead others to Christ.  In the end, it does matter.

Ah, to my fellow student, who will sit behind me in class for this entire semester, who thinks that death is nothing but an end.

Let me tell you, it’s only the beginning.