When Little Things Get Too Big // College Visiting

Hey, everyone!  It's Tuesday, and I'm enjoying yet another day of long weekend so I'm not anywhere near complaining.  Like any chronic procrastinator, ahem, I mean responsible high school senior, I'm spending my two extra non-school days (thank you, teacher conferences) walking around college campuses, eating their food and filling my purse with their free stuff and otherwise doing highly revealing evaluative research in an attempt to try and figure out what I'm going to do with my life in the next year.  I must say that the whole college search is going pretty well; I'm no longer fighting change tooth and nail, threatening to live at home forever or get married as soon as I graduate while refusing to fill out college applications.  Go ahead, congratulate me.  I'm also offering classes on how to be a stellar prospective college student for a small fee because, hello, student loans.  

Anyway, as I followed our tour guide around the pretty campus of Saginaw Valley State University yesterday, I started to get really, really excited.  (Note: For you aspiring college campus tour guides, please don't walk backwards the whole time.  It gives guidees the feeling that they're constantly backing you into a corner and also inflicts so many mini heart attacks as the guide almost runs into people / trees / trash cans / buildings.)

Look at it!  I didn't take this; it's from here: 

Pretty soon, all I could think about was the fitness center and the Starbucks and the brand new indoor track and the free home football games and the thousands of new people and the really interesting classes and all of the other glittering facets of college life.  I could picture myself sitting and eating dinner with my friends and buying coral and mint decor for my tiny dorm, maybe applying for the honors college or getting involved in campus ministry or club sports.  Also, did you know that the boys in college are more attractive than the ones in high school? Go figure!

As exciting as life is right now, full of novelty and branching with roads untraveled, it's also so confusing.  Choosing between college and taking a gap year to do mission work in Africa is hard enough, let alone trying to get my heart and mind to settle on one particular school and - gulp - a major.  It's times times like these, when my vision is clouded my a kaleidoscope of all that seems bright and beautiful, that I'm so thankful for the absolute clarity that comes from God.  Take this, for example:

"You, God, are my God, 

earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for You, 

my whole being 

longs for you,

in a dry and parched

land

where there is no water.

I have seen you in the 

sanctuary

and beheld your

power and your glory.

Because your love 

is better than life,

my lips will glorify

you.

I will praise you as

 long as I live, 

and in your name I 

will lift up my hands.

I will be fully satisfied

as with the richest 

foods; 

with singing lips my

mouth will praise you.  

Because you are my help, 

I sing in the shadow

 of your wings.

I cling to you;

your right hand 

upholds me. "

The way I see it, these words are a verbal blueprint for how life's supposed to be, and I don't know about you, but that's really comforting.  I don't know right now whether I'll end up sleeping in a tent in Africa or playing a sport at a small private school or going to a huge state university and pursuing a PhD, and those possibilities would be so stressful if I didn't have an anchor in the words of that Psalm.  Regardless of which path I take, I already know that I have a love that can make my life more meaningful than any college experience.  I know for sure that I'm made to praise God with myself, and if that's all I know, I'm good, you know?  I just thought that was so cool, and I had to share! 

Allie