Today, I am someone who sees her freedom in Jesus Christ and who knows that He loves her endlessly, but I was not that girl before I came to college.

I'll confess this to you now: I am absolutely terrible at trusting in God and His faithfulness. I've made lots of dumb decisions, gotten myself into messes, and stayed in bad relationships because I've heard the voice of God telling me to go one way and I ignored it. However, God has won the battle for my heart every single time, and He's shown me over and over again how much He is in control. I especially got to see that through my experience with college thus far.

I go to Christopher Newport University, and it was one of my very last choices out of the handful of schools I applied to. My first-choice school had everything I wanted - excellent academics, a beautiful campus full of people who cared about succeeding in school, and a potential roommate in one of my closest friends, who got accepted on early decision. It seemed like the perfect fit for me, and I was devastated when I didn't get accepted.

I had invested a lot of my worth into my intelligence and my ability to get into a prestigious university, and I felt lost and hopeless when I didn't achieve what I expected to. I didn't get into the three more prestigious universities I applied to, which left me with a school I knew nothing about, a school I didn't like, and CNU. I chose it - and went - very reluctantly, ready to transfer into my top choice as soon as possible.

However, as set as I was to not enjoy being there and to get out as soon as possible, God is in the business of changing people's hearts, and as time passed, even in the first week I was there, the Lord surprised me.

When I first arrived on campus and my parents left me to go back home, I prayed a quiet prayer that the Lord would grow me here, whether I liked it or not. And, as time passed, little by little, he started revealing Himself to me, and I started to grow. I started to notice that various teachers in various places - CRU, Sunday service, a speaker at conference - repeatedly pulled Scripture from Colossians 3, a chapter that really spoke to me in my senior year while I was struggling with idolizing my first choice school. That was the first hint that I got that the Lord knows my heart and knows it deeply. And, from there, He has only proved Himself more and more faithful and loving.

I can now say confidently that Jesus loves me, and that I love Him, and that my life means nothing if not to live fully for the cause of Christ.

God has answered that small prayer so clearly - and other prayers, too - so many times over that I no longer can doubt his faithfulness. He has widened my view of the Gospel, led me to communities of faithful, wonderful people, and revealed to me His heart for the lost and for those treated unjustly. I have changed so much over these five weeks. I can now say confidently that Jesus loves me, and that I love Him, and that my life means nothing if not to live fully for the cause of Christ. The Lord has changed my heart in the very best of ways, and I feel like I am now truly living the full life of John 10:10 that Jesus has promised us.

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." - John 10:10

If you are feeling discouraged, stuck, and far away from the Lord, I've been there. I understand that so deeply - wanting to have a thriving relationship with God, but feeling far away and lost, constantly seeking, never finding. Sister, I understand.

Hold on. Wait, in faith. He will come for you, if you truly want Him to. In my life, it took moving to a new place and into a new phase of life for me to see how far He has led me in my walk with Him. The Lord reveals Himself in these periods of newness because He is a God who delights in renewing His children, and restoring them to become more like Himself. And He wants restoration for every single one of us, even if it may not feel that way.

If you ask Him, He will answer.

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be give to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." -Luke 11:9-10

My friend Phebe is constantly saying that God is faithful, and now I understand why she says that so often. It's worth saying over and over again.

God. Is. So. Faithful.

 {images by Ellie DuHadway}