Intramurals. Classes. Friends. Football games. Relationships. Sorority life. Volunteering. Socializing. Sleep(?). Midterms. Exercising. Family back home. Internships. Resumes. This summer. Next summer. Next weekend.
College students are busy people. Just ask any Mom who dropped her kid off at a Big Ten College campus seven weeks ago and has been catapulted into a brand new season of life and a totally unrelenting adjustment period.
Her child must be busy, right? That must be the reason Moms everywhere keep toeing the line in hopes of crossing into the land of communication, only to immediately circle-walk themselves away from their iPhones and potentially severed relationships.
But the truth of the matter is, our college kids are busy. While they are putting on a resourceful and resilient front, venturing out into the land of the real-world is not easy for them. There’s no way it could be after only a measly seven weeks of practice.
Behind the scenes they are worrywarts. They are travailing new campuses and sometimes floundering at the waves of strangers and the great unknown. And of potential failure. Of uncertainty. Of poor choices and resultant consequences.
College kids are notorious for planning, texting, scheduling and re-scheduling, networking and organizing. They are, at this point in their totally free, completely (uh-huh) independent lives pushing toward the next cool thing on their To-Do-Lists so they can check them off in a flurry and go out.
Sure, their proactive sense of urgency prepares them for tomorrow, for the workforce, for running households and for “the real-world”…but, come on.
When are they, and we, going to stop living for tomorrow?
Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe we are wired in such a way that we always look for progress and the bigger and better thing. Maybe that’s just how we are, and maybe we are also so stubborn that we continue to be unapologetic about it.
Save this: I know for a fact that even if we are wired to look forward, even if we are busy, all it takes is a tilt of our heads to look up.
Work. Groceries. Kids. Practices. Volunteering. Relationships. Neighborhoods. Church. Exercise. Volunteering. Weekends. Extended Family. Holidays. Coffee. Hobbies. Yard work. This day. This week. This year.
Adults are busy people. Just ask any kid whose parents dropped them off at a Big Ten College campus seven weeks ago and has been catapulted into a brand new season of life and a totally unrelenting adjustment period.
God’s got it, yo. Really, He does and always has. As a self-and-others-proclaimed control freak, I categorically understand that letting go is easy in theory and ridiculously hard in practice. Yet I absolutely believe His power is present over every single plan that we have ever concocted. Every single routine. Every single 4:45am run. Every 8 a.m. class. He is sovereign over our every friendship, date, and football game. He is equally as sovereign over our every failure, heartache, and battle. When we are weary, we only need to do is take it to Him (Matt: 11:28). And trust me – sometimes that is all we can do.
God is bigger than any conflict, any study guide, any struggle and certainly any unknown. The God who made us already knows how our kids’ tests will go and if we’re going to close that deal at work. Or get a new job. Or come home to a house that feels empty or just sort of empty. He already knows who our closest friends will be – upon college graduation, retirement, and all the years in between. He knows who and when we’ll marry or if we ever do. He knows our heart and as such, tells us to guard it at all costs for it is the wellspring of life (Prov. 4:23).
The good news in all of this? For us busy folk, we can check worrying off our list of things to do so we can go get more stuff done.
Chill…and keep your head up. (Beth.10:6:2015)
Chill…and keep your head up. (Beth.10:6:2015)
