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Four years ago my very close minded father sent his youngest daughter off to college. He was very impressed with Jewell, but he wasn’t sure of this “liberal arts” thing. He was pretty sure that anything with the word liberal in it was something he wanted to keep his little girl as far away from as possible. As soon as I began to seriously look at colleges my father threw study after study in front of me that claimed facts such as: “95% of students raised in Christian homes will denounce their faith within the first 2 months of college”. To which I tried to reassure him I would not be one, you see I had already had a lot of trials and I was sure that my faith had been tried and would not falter. I was also sure that I was looking forward to having discussions about faith and topics I believed should be influenced by my faith, the type of discussions I was brought up to believe were not the topics of discussions but topics that could be stated as facts only.
To my delight my time at Jewell has been filled with those discussions. Unfortunately my time at Jewell has also been marked with the passing of my father just shy of two years after the passing of my mother. So many questions were stirred within me. These questions prompted even more discussions than I could have anticipated; dissuasions with faculty, staff, and students who have had a profound impact on my life. I learned so much about my God, myself, and my faith.
In one such discussion with a woman who was my academic advisor and who is now a dear friend of mine I remember saying, “I just feel like I am standing in the ocean, pummeled by every wave. As soon as I get up from one trial that challenges my faith I am pulled under by another and often I feel like I just dealt with that same problem”. She replied, “Your relationship with God is like a spiral stair case. You will encounter challenges and they may seem like something you have already gone through, but you must realize you are higher up on the stair case. The problem may seem the same, but God has taught you more about him and your relationship with him, in light of that you can handle it differently”. I learned that my faith in God would constantly change, it would never be a static state I thought I would obtain when I had the answer to all of the discussions I wanted to have. I now know in my heart more than just my head several things about my faith:
Christ is my Lord and savior;
he is the only way to salvation.
He grants salvation
to all those who believe in him.
This is granted by grace
through his life, death, and resurrection.
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