I started my first semester of college at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. It's the most beautiful place I've been in quite a while, and it has nothing to do with the scenery. Okay, maybe a little bit... :) It's really a very beautiful campus. Anyway, back to the story.
I started my first week about the second week in August. I attended my university's welcome week. I met my welcome week mother and father, Justin French and Corbin Simmons. Along with "Ridiculous Ryan", "Bulumptuous Blake", and about 18 other wonderful people. We played a game where we paired a word that began with the first letter of our name and theirs are the only two I can remember. All through the week we adopted and recruited new family members. For the first time in my life I was actually accepted by the people around me. Even back at FBCA the first year wasn't so smooth. People didn't treat me badly, but they also didn't particularly go out of their way to ask me how I was doing. My new welcome week family actually cared about me. We were all in this new college experience together.
I'll never forget the first time I recognized the difference. It was about a week into school, and I was bored. I hadn't really met anyone in my dorm yet and I texted a few people asking them to come chill with me in the sub, our campus cafe. I texted them half-heartedly expected them to say "no, that's okay. I'm doing something else". You know one of those polite responses that people give you because they'd rather have nothing to do with you. What I got was the complete opposite. They all came. To them it probably didn't mean much to them to answer a texted message, but to someone who has been rejected even in small ways the majority of their life it meant a lot.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit. The whole point of welcome week and the subsequent "families" are to help new students acclimate to their new environment. The "parents" are to help give new freshman connections on campus to organizations, answer questions about different campus traditions, and help them meet people on campus. Throughout welcome week we play games, go to orientation, etc. If we have any questions we have our "parents" to help guide us. All the events lead up to the single most important event of the week, "Dubbing Ceremony". It's a campus tradition. All the new students, Freshman and Transfer, gather outside of Luther Memorial and we are presented with the definition of what it means to be a Crusader. My dad is a Couch Cru Captian, kinda a team of yell leaders, and he had a lot to say about that. "Crusader, never walks alone." was pretty much his anthem.
Well, what I haven't mentioned up to this point is that the whole 6-7 months leading up to this semester I was dreading coming to UMHB. I had my mind set on a college far off in Kentucky. I was sure that was were God wanted me to go. It was the first time I had "heard" what God wanted for my life, and I couldn't accept the fact I was wrong. I didn't want to go to UMHB, in fact a few years before when my high school went there for a State Choir competition, I sat out there on the Quad with my best friend on one of the swings looking around. I declared to her that "I will never come to school here. It's pretty, but I will never come to school here." When she asked me why I simply stated to her I didn't like it. After all this here I was at the dubbing ceremony for UMHB. The entire week I kept hearing everyone say, "You're here for a reason. There are no accidents. God brought you here for a reason."
Now, at the dubbing ceremony their words were echoing in my mind. They said when you were dubbed as a Crusader you were a Crusader Forever. Now, I'm not one to make promises lightly. I knew that if I was dubbed it would mean that I was staying at UMHB all four years of my college life. Maybe, that's not what it means to other people, but that's what it meant to me. In fact, the whole past year Iknew that I only wanted to attend one college. That's just my personality. I don't like "quitting", "giving up on things", or "Not finishing what I start". I abhor it. I played with the idea of going to UMHB for a semester and then transfering to my college in Kentucky, but as I sat in that dubbing ceremony chair I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I was fully prepared to walk away from that ceremony, if I didn't want to make that commitment. But as I sat there, I thought about all the things that had happened to get me to this point. God had brought UMHB out of the blue. I didn't go looking for this univeristy. Not only that God had paid for everything. I had made it to this University all on scholarship and grants from the Indian Reservation. I didn't have any debt, and here I was pouting about me being "right". Right then and there I decided I wasn't going to pout, fight, or be angry about me being here at UMHB. In fact I was going to find out what God had for me. He brought me this far it must be important. So I got up, was dubbed as a Crusader Forever and started with a whole new attitude. It wasn't one of those climatic events like in the movies, in fact, it would have been classified as "anti climatic". We didn't have fancy robes, or organized lines that would signify a ceremony. It was kinda like ordered chaos, but to me a was a defining moment. I remember walking back to my dorm that night I had a conversation with God. I promised Him I wasn't just going to sit back and wait for Him to bring me whatever He wanted for me. I wasn't going to be one of those people who said they "surrender" and then sit on their hands and never go looking for God's best. I told Him I was going to seek Him, and what He wanted for me here. I wasn't going to idle. I wasn't going to waste time. I was going to meet the people He wanted me to meet, and do what He wanted me to do.
So the next few months, that's exactly what I did, and I can't believe what I found. At UMHB they describe it as a "Home", at least its one of their goals. The pray and hope that all the faculty can become kind of your family away from home and the students will meet friends, brothers and sisters for a lifetime. I can tell you right now that is something I've always wanted. I could write a book about my first semester here. How when I trusted God He gave me everything I ever wanted. Some of the things that I thought i would never had. Things I had given up on years ago, God gave me. Things I forgot were my deepest desires He gave me. He has blessed me beyond belief this past semester, and not just in my life but in my families life. Things have changed so much. I can't even believe it. He changed the heart of my dad, and is healing my family He gave me a family here at UMHB. I have had sisters in the past. Two to be precise. Anastasia and Juji. Now I have more sisters and a miracle, BROTHERS! I love them more than I can possibly describe, and I trust them with my life. God gave me everything I didn't have the courage to ask for, and I'll never forget it. I've also grown so much in the past semester.
I am constantly filled with joy, love, and peace! Worry has not infected my heart once while I was there at UMHB. the only time it did was when I came back here to my house in Houston. I can't stop singing, I'm in love with my Savior, My God, My Daddy, My Friend. I've written songs. I've written poetry. I've done things I haven't done since I first met Him when I was four. I have returned to my first love. My heart is filled. Tis a beautiful thing. Also, I have fallen, I believe, in love with a wonderful man of God. I can't describe to you how it happened, and I can assure you that he has no idea. :) All I know is the only way I do is because of God. I never thought I could love a man. A broken sinful man, especially not a man like my father. After all these years especially the last two, it wasn't that I stopped loving my father I still love him. In fact I probably love him more. It was more like, I don't think I'd have the strength to love a man like him. More like, I wouldn't be enough to love a man with my father's type of past. I don't have the patience. I don't have the love in my heart that would help me love a man.
Then like an avalanche, love filled my heart for a man that I barely knew. In fact, when I finally admitted to myself that I loved him, the only thing I knew about him was that He was a man of God. But for me that was enough, because the love I had for him wasn't my own. It was the same with my best friend Anastasia. Before I met her I didn't think I could ever love someone enough to call them "best friend", and then a year later God brought her into my life in a very direct way. Now, nearly a year after I proclaimed to that same best friend, "I don't think I'll ever get married, because I don't think I could ever love a man that much or in that way. I can't see how I ever could?".
Well, I'm here to tell you I still don't know how I do, but somehow I do. I can only attribute it to God. He opened my heart to him, and I hope if it pleases the Lord to do so that He will open his heart to mine. Either way I am thankful, because I know now that I can love that deeply, perhaps even deeper than that.
After years of running away from Him, I have finally ran back to my Lord. He has brought me back to His side. I can hear His voice again. I'm not distracted by the world, or its lies. I am captivated by His love once more. He is all I see. I don't want anything else. I feel cherished like I was when I was little. I see myself how God sees me for the first time since I was a little girl. I see myself as his daughter, his princess. I see myself for what He has made me. I used the analogy of my name. It means "Pleasant". God gave me that name before I was born. HE gave me that name, and I believe it was for the moments when I believe I'm worthless. When I feel I am just a burden, or when my mistakes take me too far away to be saved. When I feel I am nothing but a disappointment. God gave me that name to remind me that I am fully pleasing, not by my own power, but because He has made me that way. God calls me "Pleasant" who am I to say I am other wise? lol. my last name also means "Flowers". I like to say that I am in full bloom. I really believe that. My time is come. My ministry full fledged what I was made to do has come. I think I might write that book, but not just about this last semester but about my life. Perhaps, one day I'll publish it. Perhaps not. All I know probably as long as I live I will never finish "talking" about all that He's done.
Psalm 40:5
"Oh Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them."
Oh Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.
