On the Brink

     Recently I have been thinking about my life and how much it has changed. Not only since coming to college, but also just in the past few months. I am a junior in college now (that still sounds so weird/scary to me), and, while I am still an RA on campus, I have moved to a different community than the Suites, where I had lived for the past 2 years at Kennesaw State. I live in the University Village now, a mixed community with apartment style dorms. For the first time ever, I have a full-size kitchen, a living room, and laundry room, all in my apartment that I can call mine. It is not my parent's apartment, it is my apartment. While it is still on campus, I feel like I grew up a bit when this happened. I have the ability (and the talent, I might add) to cook an actual dinner on the stove/in the oven, and that has been awesome. I can do laundry whenever I feel like it, but I do not have to pay for it.

     Because of this change, this growing up that I have recently experienced, I believe I am on the brink of something completely new and different. I have come to the realization that I have a choice: I can rise to the occasion and be great, or I can fall back and merely coast through it.

     The first is my Christian walk. I will be completely honest in saying that I have been rocky. Reading my Bible and having that daily time with God has not been on my list of top priorities like I know it should be. Living out the Christian walk like I know I was raised to do has not been my lifestyle lately. Andy Stanley did a 4-part sermon series entitled, "The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating", that I watched on line some time ago, but recently has crept back up into my thoughts. (If you haven't watched the series, I strongly recommend it. Here's the link! The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating.) One thing he said in particular has stuck with me ever since the first time I watched it. He said, "Are you the type of person that the person you're looking for is looking for?" I had never thought about that before. I know what type of girl I am looking for to eventually marry, but have I been the type of guy she is looking for? The answer: probably not. I want to be the type of man that a good, Christian woman wants to marry. I want to enter into a marriage where not only is our love for each other evident, but also our love for God. That is why I recognized that I needed to make changes to the way I have been living. If I truly want what I say I want, then I have to do whatever it takes to get that. I am by no means saying that I want to be married in the next year, or even in the next 2 or 3 years. I am, however, saying that I need to lay the foundation for that now. I am only 20 years old, but in 2 short years I will be a 22 yr. old college graduate, and I (hopefully) foresee getting married following that not too far behind.

     The next area where I see a big "occasion" on the rise is in my studies. This sort of thinking came about because I am taking 3 classes this summer, and have already lost my motivation to actually do work for those classes. A good friend of mine, after telling her I had no motivation, told me that I just had to push through the classes and do well, or else I would look back and feel like I wasted the summer. I cannot stop time from continuing. I cannot stop the deadlines, tests, and papers from coming, so the thing I need to do now is just push through and do what I need to do. She was right, my friend. If I waste this summer, I am going to be so mad at myself. I will start the fall semester with the regret of having done poorly this summer, and I do not want that. So here's to finding the motivation to do what I need to do, when I need to do it.

     I am not writing this for the public eye, although it is public for anyone who wants to read. I am writing this because I have always felt that once something is in writing and out in public, it is more official, more permanent, more real. I am hoping that by this, I am solidifying my want to be great.