i remember

It’s been almost a twelvemonth since I sat at my desk in the corner of my dorm room and cried while I wrote this. I wonder often how time passes so quickly, how something that once seemed interminable has fled in a blink, never to come back.

I remember that time painfully well. I had a gnawing hollowness in my chest, missing home with every facet of my being. But that day was a turning point, a point in which I chose to break free from self-pity and pour myself into my God-ordained circumstances with all of my strength. And, as I suspected, my only regret looking back is that I didn’t reach that turning point earlier.

I wrote then that I wanted to remember. That I wanted to live intentionally, treating each day there like the gift it was. That I wanted to breathe in the humidity, memorize the sound of the creaking floorboards, sense the love and warmth of a Spirit-filled church body, and be washed in the awe of God’s incredible Story.

And I did. I remember.

I remember coffee and homework at Brewster’s, and the roar of Aaron’s pickup before he got his muffler. I remember anxiously checking my homework grades, feeding baby Trinity her bottle, and enjoying Ms. Dottie’s delicious pasta. There were midnight pizza runs, movie nights and apple pies at Ethan’s house, and good times over hot Thai food at Boon’s. Colin and Hannah made up crazy stories while we canoed on the lake at the Imsdahls’; Ashley was always ready at the right time with a hug; Luis could be found in the kitchen frequently, presiding over Top Ramen or the rice cooker. We used to get unbelievably excited over a home-cooked steak dinner at the Watsons’—even myself, though I was practically raised on beef—and some of us gladly received an extra dose of delicious Watson-Schroeder cooking on the long, mild, lazy Sunday afternoons at Granny’s.

Nothing good comes of wallowing in the past or fretting about the future. That’s bad stewardship—a waste of precious time. Looking beyond the definite hardships, last year I lived a beautiful gift: the gift of one year free to devote myself entirely to the study of my Lord. And this year and the years that follow will be no less a privilege to walk through, so long as I am walking beside my King.