awake & free: Lessons Learned Since Graduating College, Part Three (Meg)

{This was originally posted on my friend’s blog who gathered thoughts from many different people in this stage of life. Feel free to check it out!}

I promise not everything was terrible and awful in my first year out. There were a lot of great moments. Yes, things were pretty challenging – and some things are still challenging now – but they were also really good sometimes too. Like that moment when I rode public transportation on my own for the first time without getting lost. Or every time I realize I don’t have to take final exams.

Life now just looks different than it once did.

I think once I realized that things were different, I started to appreciate what made life good. I realized the things that helped me to actually relax, rather than spending time in front of the tv every night once I got home from work. I paid attention to the things in the city that I did like, rather than focusing on what I didn’t, and I was intentional to verbally acknowledge them or make note of them when I passed by. I let people into my heart who helped me to feel known and at home.

And sometimes I had a dance party in my apartment by myself. Just cranked the music up and let loose. I was where I was in life, and I was there for a purpose. So why not live it up? Why not take advantage of it all?

Lesson Five: It Takes Time.

I had a lot of healing to do after my struggle of a year. It was hard to heal. But that was good too.

It just takes time to get adjusted to the new “normal” – whatever that is.

I have valuable friendships. They are different than my college friendships, but they are good. I didn’t even know most of these friends until about a year after I moved, but they have marked my time here. Good friendships don’t grow overnight. But that’s okay. They do grow.

My church? Yeah, there are things I might change, but who am I to judge? They are a body of believers who are wonderful and who love Jesus and who have been a real community for me. I know them now. I’m involved. If I had quit too soon, I wouldn’t have grown as I have. It just took me some time to feel a part of it all.

Living within a budget that worked for me, making decisions and realizing that they really do have an impact on me, getting through the year… they took time. But all good things do, right? The instant things – they’re never as good as the ones that take a little longer. I’d choose the homemade meal over the microwave one any day (if someone else is fixing it J). And the same is true in life. My appreciation for it all is deeper and its value is more. I’d rather wait.

Lesson Six: My Solid Rock.

If we’re honest, though, we don’t usually like waiting. We don’t like to think things take time. We live in a world where connecting to the internet (at our fingertips!) takes mere milliseconds. And if it takes longer… well, we complain. So, life lessons? Taking time? Waiting? No thanks. That’s not really our thing.

But regardless of our disdain for it, it’s often our reality.

So what do we do in the waiting? What do we do when things are hard and when life is a whirlwind? When you feel alone because you don’t have friends or when you are so stressed about money because college loans are crushing you?

In the midst of all the chaos and all the struggle, one thing was true of my life that held me anchored: I knew Jesus and I knew He had placed me there. I turned to Him – often in tears, doubting His character – because I knew nothing else was trustworthy. Even in my struggles and fears, the deepest part of my heart knew nothing else would satisfy me outside of Him. He is the answer to my cries and the One who put me there in the first place.

I probably reread Psalm 62 over and over again that first year, hoping it was true.

Charles Spurgeon said, “Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances. Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good.” The circumstances are for my good. And God put me here. This is where my rubber hits the road.

Did I always believe it? No. Did I put a smile on my face and embrace each morning? Definitely not.

I wrestled. I questioned. I sat on the floor of my apartment and sobbed. I asked the Lord, in anger and hurt, “Do you love me!? Do you even SEE me here?!” I wore my emotions on my sleeve and I wasn’t always happy.

But even in the midst of it all, I chose to trust the truth.

I wasn’t, but Jesus was.

Jesus –Love Himself – knew me. He knew me, he loved me, and before all time, He knew how I would be feeling and my present reality. He came and, humbling Himself as a man, He lived a perfect life. He faced transition and He faced heartbreak and He faced reality. He did it without sin. He loved. He lived radically.

Not only that but he died. He paid the debt that I owed – that you owed – and He was separated from God. He conquered death. He rose again and walked this earth and lives today. He left His Spirit so that I might know Him – that I might begin to understand His goodness.

He looked at me and He did see me, even if I didn’t feel like He did. He was faithful to me when I was quick to abandon Him when circumstances got to be too much. And even today, as I write from “the other side,” He’s faithful to me. He put me in my circumstances post-graduation. He put me where I am now. He did both out of love. Deep, earth-shattering, I-died-for-you kind of love.

He was my rock. I clung to Him.

I urge you to seek Him. Challenge Him. I don’t care if you’re having the best year or five of your life after graduating college. I don’t care if college was absolutely horrific for you and anything afterwards has been a walk in the park. I don’t care if you’re wallowing in self-pity or feeling the life being sucked out of you. Seek. Jesus.

He’s what makes it worthwhile. He is enough.

So, after all is said and done… you may not relate at all with what I’ve shared about my post-college life. I might be the only person to struggle the way I did those first few months and even throughout my first year. I doubt it. But it’s possible.

Even still, a few things are true. Jesus is worth it. And one day, one glorious Day, it’ll all be better. For good. And even then I think we still may acknowledge the facts: that nobody wants cockroaches… and that there’s always more to learn.

So pull up your big kid pants and put on your Ray Bans because this is it. Welcome to the real world, it’s one heck of a ride.