This Battle Doesn't Belong to Me Anymore

I don't usually go to LOFT, which is Calvin's Sunday night service. Tonight, I'm very glad I did.

The theme for tonight was 'David and Goliath.' We read through the story, complete with Pastor Mary's hilarious embellishments, and after that was done, we got down to business: she asked us, point-blank, what our giants are. What are the giants that we are afraid to admit to anyone?

Struggling in school?
Fear?
Feeling out of place?
Eating disorder?
Pornography?
Self-doubt?
Self-injury?
Anxiety?

The list goes on. Pastor Mary looked us in the eyes and said "This giant is not yours to face. This battle doesn't belong to you. David trusted God to deliver him from Goliath, and he wants you to trust God to take care of your giant too. You can trust Him. He can do anything. ANYTHING. Nothing that you are facing is too big for him to destroy."

She then invited students to share the giants that they face every day and to claim the power that God has in store for us. One after another, people shared stories of fear, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, identity crises, loneliness, out-of-place-ness, and other things. These brave students publicly (and very, very bravely) shared their giants with us and claimed God's protection, strength, and healing. I was sitting there in awe of their bravery and I knew I would never have the courage to do that in front of all my peers.

But as the service came to a close, and the time had passed for me to share, I thought, why can't I have that courage? I just need to ask, right? I don't need to be afraid. And even if I am afraid, I don't have to let it consume me. I can stand up and be strong. With God's help.

So here goes. I'm going to tell you the story of my giant.

I've been fighting depression since I started college. One thousand one hundred and eight days of feeling worthless, heavy-laden, and afraid. Not every single day was a bad day, but having several good days in a row was a very rare occurrence. My outlook was bleak. It was hard to just get out of bed every day. It is STILL hard to get out of bed every day. God picked me up and set me on my feet every morning, but it was hard to remember that and be thankful.

I was incredibly lonely throughout my time at GRCC. I was living at home, almost all of my friends were living the high life away at college, and I was in the same place I was back in high school. Just without friends and with little social interaction outside of my family. I began to cling to the moments of going out for coffee, visiting friends' dorms, and seeing them for just a few minutes every week. I clung to them with everything I had because I was drowning in loneliness.

When I transferred to Calvin, I hoped that the intentionality of creating community would pull me out of my loneliness. I was able to see my friends from high school on a more regular basis, but they had moved on and made new friends, as they rightly should have. I tried to assimilate myself into their new groups, but I've never been very good at that, and I always had a voice in my head saying You're an outsider. You're never going to fit in with these people. Stop trying. 


My first semester of living on campus (fall semester, junior year) did not go as planned. I knew that where I was living was not going to be the same as the dorm experience is for many students. I was hoping to meet some new people, have people to hang out with, and maybe make some friends. I had no roommate, and therefore spent a LOT of time alone. At this point, all the people my age had moved off campus as I was moving on. They were busy with their own lives, I was busy with mine, and our schedules always slid past each other. For this reason, I was hoping to make some new friends from my building.

I met a total of 6 people that semester who lived in my building. 6. 2 were RAs. 2 of them were the guys across the hall who constantly played their music too loud with their doors wide open. The other two were girls that I got along with pretty well, but both graduated that semester and I haven't seen them since. I constantly told myself that I should be more sociable and more outgoing, but I didn't know how. That voice was telling me Who would want to be your friend? What does anyone see in you? How did you have friends in the first place? People are too busy for you because they don't want to spend their time on you. 


You can imagine my enthusiasm to spend a semester in Spain, where I knew 2 people in the group of students and where everything very suddenly and very harshly became an unknown. It was the longest 18 weeks of my life. I experienced my very worst fights with depression while I was there, and it's only by the grace of God that I survived them and emerged, a little worse for wear. I thank God for the help He sent me along the way, in the form of my classmates, and I've already written a tribute to them on this blog (search on the right hand side under May for 'Living with Lions' for more about this topic). I would have given in to the temptation to end it (in more ways than one) had it not been for them. Dark times. But God's light shined brighter, even when I had trouble seeing it. There was one person in particular who held her light out to me day after day, and I don't thank her enough for it. I thank my God every time I remember her and I'll be forever grateful that God crossed our paths in Spain and continues to cross them now.

Summers were the blazing light in my school year darkness. I have spent each of the last 4 working at the Conference Grounds and it has blessed my life beyond description. I have found a second family there and friends that have walked beside me through this fight. It really says something about a summer job when you long to see your co-workers during the school year. The Conference Grounds is synonymous with community. The staff is a family, and the campers get to become a part of that family. I'm so thankful for them. Without this job, there would be no break from my despair. This is not to say that I never felt depression while at the Conference Grounds. Far from it. But I knew there was always someone who would be there for me, holding out their light to me, ready to walk beside me for as long as I needed them to.

That brings us to this moment, two weeks into my senior year of college. 1,108 days of fighting this beast called depression. Some days I won. I overcame it temporarily. Most days, I was defeated, but held on long enough to go to bed and hope for victory the next day. The beast has been gaining strength over the last several days, and I'm not sure why, but today was one of the worst days. Almost on the same scale as the days in Spain. But after experiencing the power that the others claimed for their lives at LOFT tonight, I want to claim it too.

I will not let the beast destroy me.
I will not give in because of fear.
I will not hide from it.
I will claim God's power and strength.
I will not let anyone look down on me because of the things I have shared.
I will not listen to the voice anymore. In fact, voice, you're banished. Get outta here.
I will try to live with courage every day.
I will be brave.
I will give this battle to God.
I will wait on Him.
I will seek rest.

If you've been able to read all of this, it means I clicked "publish" instead of "discard." Right now, even as I type, I'm having second thoughts.

But the giant ahead of me is NOTHING compared to the God behind me.

Deep breath. Go.

Where Do YOU Sit?

I came across this cute little interactive illustration today that explains what your choice of seating in a classroom says about your personality and/or learning style. Maybe "came across" is too loose of a term. More like...I searched the question "What your seating choice in class says about your personality" and then clicked on the most promising link. What, you might ask, prompted me to do this? Who even thinks about these things?!

Once I realized that I sit in more or less the same area in every single class, I began to wonder if this says something about me. I ALWAYS sit in the back row, corner seat if I get lucky. If I'm not early to class and the back row is taken, I bolt for a seat on the side. If no back row or side seats are available, I have a mini panic attack. For this reason, I like to arrive 10 minutes (ish) early so that I can get a seat I'm comfortable with.

Why is this so important? Well, I don't like thinking that people are looking at me, which eliminates the front row and the middle seats. I don't like being surrounded by people, which definitely eliminates the middle seats. I don't even particularly like being in the middle of the back row. Give me a corner or a side and I'm a very happy student.

It turns out that there is a bit of psychology to this! Click on this link to see what I'm talking about. The description of my side seat fits me almost perfectly, I think (except for the 'best note-taker in the class part, haha).
The Reserved Learner: "Sitting on the side gives you a feeling of privacy, and you like it like that. In class, you are probably quiet and reserved but that doesn't mean that you're not into learning. You typically collect your information from the contributions of others, even though you would have said the same thing had you raised your hand. Your preference is observation, rather than participation and you're probably one of the best note-takers in the class."

All throughout college, whenever we didn't have to have assigned seating charts, I chose the same location in which to sit. Without fail. Although, now that I reflect on it more, there is one glaring exception: Spain. Last semester, we had (almost) every class in the same classroom. We became very comfortable with it, knew which seats were closest to the outlets, which had best wi-fi, which tables didn't squeak as much as the others, etc. Once we got past Interim and got into the actual semester-long classes, I realized that I was much more comfortable with moving around in my seating choice. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the fact that the seating consisted of long tables with chairs instead of single seater desks, but I know that familiarity with my classmates certainly played a huge role in my willingness to break out of my habitual seating preference. During a semester of very uncomfortable situations, finding a seat in class turned out to not be one of them, for a change.

Hopefully you found this marginally interesting. If not, I apologize for wasting your time. This is just what happened to be on my mind tonight. :)

Moved In and Moving Right Along

Well, I'm all moved into La Casa de Espanol! (fancy official term for Kappa #3 in the Knollcrest East apartments at Calvin). I left the Grounds at 9:30 on Monday night, arrived at Calvin around 10:15, and proceeded to move the rest of my stuff in. I had a LOT of bulky awkward things to carry in, like memory foam and a comforter. You know, stuff you can only carry one of at a time and therefore makes move-in time take FOREVER.

Anyway, I got everything packed into the apartment, I need to pick up only 14 items from home (hahaha) and classes began right away the next day. It looks like my classes will be all right this semester:

Spanish 340 - Linguistics, Phonology, and Dialectology. Yuck. But I think I'll have a leg up with the speaking experience I gained while I was in Spain. Plus, three other Spain semester girls are in this class with me! I'm glad I get to keep seeing them.
Psychology 212 - Psychopathology. Also known as Abnormal Psychology. Super pumped for this one. The prof is hilarious, the material looks awesome, and if I have to have a 9:00am class, this seems like the one to have.
Psychology 335 - Health Psychology. Not as pumped about this one. It was either this, or Brain and Behavior, Cognitive Psychology, or Statistics in Psychology. Gross, more gross, and most gross. So Health Psych it is. :)
Education 307 - Literacy in Your Content Area. Basically, it sounds like how to develop and hone literacy in your students in your major. It still seems super abstract to me, and I don't know what to expect, but we'll see how it goes. At least there isn't a final exam.
Interdisciplinary 357 - Secondary World Languages Pedagogy. Or, how to teach a foreign language to high school students. This one could be the most fun, I think. First of all, there are 4 Spain semester girls in this one too. Second, there are about 7 different language majors represented in this class, which is so cool to me. We're all studying a different language, but we can all benefit from the same class.

Here's something interesting I came across. On the first day of school, I was estimating that walking from my apartment to Calvin's main campus would take 15-20 minutes. Wrong. It took like 8. hahaha. After walking EVERYWHERE in Spain, distances just don't seem as long anymore. :)

I'm guessing that my procrastinative tendencies will kick in around Monday, so I should do some homework before I lose the motivation. Besides having to leave the Grounds, homework is the other worst thing about school starting again. I don't mind class. I love seeing everyone again. I love hanging out in this apartment (with reliable internet), but I could do without the homework.

Ta for now.

Top 8: Highlights of Summer 2011 at the CRCG

It's hard to figure out where each of these falls, but I'll do my best. :)

8. The day we found out that Bryant doesn't like physical contact of any kind. He fears it, actually.
7. Reading books in the sunshine while laying out at the beach and pool.
6. Spending an afternoon with Autumn (4yrs) and Savannah (almost 2yrs) playing with Play-Doh and their white board. We then walked over to Dawn's trailer for popcorn and hot chocolate. Two days later, we came back for Autumn's birthday party and played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Kristyn (Autumn's mom) put the donkey poster on the spare tire case on the back of a staff motor home. I had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dawn placed her donkey tail on an entirely different trailer. :)
5. Any time we played Telephone Pictionary or Likewise. Always ended up in stitches. Of laughter. haha.
4. Any time former staff members came back to visit.
3. Being roommates with Jessica again and meeting our new roomie, Lindsey. We found out preeeeetty quickly that we all had a LOT in common and that she would fit in with us just fine. :)
2. Bringing staff and students together to perform Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) at the Middle School Week Lip Sync. Want to see the video? It was pretty spectacular. :)
1. I really don't think I could choose a top highlight. Meeting everyone at orientation and then working with them throughout the summer was fabulous. I was so blessed by all the staff members and the I hope we were a blessing to everyone who came to our great campground. :)