someone bigger

I have been at college for one month.  In this one month I have been frustrated, stretched, annoyed, and challenged more than I have in the past year.  I haven't been blissfully happy more than twice, and I have been lonelier than ever before.  I have also been obnoxious, rude, loud, and insensitive.  Consequently, I have 2 Timothy 2:13 written everywhere:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot disown Himself.   

Being in this place has revealed all the wads of faithlessness I've always had but never before encountered.  All of the people here who have spent more than an hour with me have discovered many flaws - I'm not very good at hiding them.  Tonight, my inconsistencies and discrepancies were screaming at me.  I was sitting in a classroom attempting to read The Odyssey, but I kept getting distracted by what a loser I was and how much I wished I were home where everything is easy.  Finally I jumped up, grabbed some chalk, and scrawled across the chalk board: "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 1:14).  Every time my mind began to wander from cannibalistic cyclops' and nymphs with braided hair back to my bad day, I glanced up at the chalk board, and slowly, almost as slowly as one learns to appreciate The Odyssey, my mood shifted.  I'm not sure how, but simply looking at the words "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly" adjusted my eyes from looking inward to looking upward.  I jumped up, walked into the neighboring classroom where two of my friends were studying, and said, "Have you guys read 2 Timothy 2:13?!"  One of them looked at me quizzically and the other asked me what was wrong this time.  I emphatically replied that nothing was wrong; in fact, everything was all right because the ugly mess called Erica was of no consequence!  There was no need to focus on any of my failings, because no matter how many times I am faithless, He remains faithful! Over, and over, and over again I drop the ball, and yet none of that bears any weight on how I am loved by God!

What a thought!  It makes me want to jump up and shout!  There is someone bigger than I--someone who does not base His love for me on my love for Him.  What liberation!

Tonight, I am happy.  I am intensely human, but God is interested in me regardless.  He is drawing me closer to Him, and slowly, I hope, I will change.  All I want now is to know God--to know the One who looks beyond my fallibility and sees potential.  A lot of the time I am cynical and don't see that potential, but it must be there, for the simply reason that I am loved by God.

(Contrary to how I may sound, there are some great things about being in college, and I am so glad to be here.  I want to tell you about them sometime!)