personal

On a personal note here is some of who I am and what has gotten me where I am.
I am a 21 year old Christian college student who daily, struggles with her faith. Currently I lead the campus study group that I started the second semester of my Freshman year. I continually struggle with my human nature, and strive to be the person I know I should be, the woman God wants me to be.
    My Junior and Senior years in high school at Mount Vernon Academy were some of my best. I was surrounded but many wonderful people, faculty and students alike. My senior year I was offered the position of senior RA by the Girls dean despite no previous experiance. I was very honored and excited about this, and over all it was a wonderful experiance. I learned to deal with many different personalities and pick the battles that needed my attention, not the ones that would make things worse. I had always been told that I was mature for my age, and times I feel like I was at a high school level way before I arrived to the status. Being an RA for the Girls dorm helped me move up to a new level of awareness and maturity that helped prepare me for college life.
    I also had the opportunity to be a small group leader for 2 prayer conferences my senior year. I jumped in blindly, not having a clue what to expect or what to do, but God pushed me out of my "comfort zone", so I went. Everytime I started to get comfortable with where I was at my senior year I would get a swift kick telling me that I was no longer to be in that comfort zone. It was an exciting and scary time in my life, I never felt closer to God, or that He was closer to me than that year. I grew stronger in Christ.
   Now that I am in college things have increased in difficulty ten fold. Welcome to the real real world. I actually had to study to get decent grades, I wasn't required to go to vespers and Church every week, and extra-curricular activities had changed. You never saw anyone praying, or talking about God (except when swearing). Culture shock set in and I was scared. What kind of world was this where no one cared about much more than who was sleeping with who, or what drinking party there was? I was intimdated, but still close to God because of my MVA experiancce. I knew God was there and would help me. I was very dissapointed to learn there was no Christian groups on campus (I was lead to belive that there was upon enrollment). I decided that there was a need and a few of my friends and I banded together to form what we now refer to as Witness. My Sophomore year with Witness was very trying. As I have assured you before I am not perfect, just forgiven (though sometime I forget that part) and I was attacked for my imperfections the spring semester of my soph. year. They were personal issues that I had dealt with on a personal level with God and didn't feel the need to tell the rest of the world. It was a very trying time for me as I had just forgiven myself (which often takes longer than Gods instant forgiveness) when they surfaced in my group of "friends". I was finally told by a more recent friend was was going on, and to this day theses "friends" have never dicussed it with me. They have chosen to belive what they heard by heresay, rather than talk to me about it. It is something that still causes me sadness and pain. I hate to think I have negatively impacted anyone's life like that (they never returned to Witness). I have tried to be more careful since then as I know being in a leadership position automatically sets you up to be scrutinized. It was very hard for me to go on with the group, but there was no one to take my place. Looking back I'm sure that was God's design as I would have packed my bags and never gone back for fear of falling again. I am a big DC Talk fan, and their song What If I Stumble is a wonderful explination of how I felt, and what I clung to though this time. The chorus says: "What if I stumble, what if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all, Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl? What if I stumble, what if I fall?"
    Since then I have struggled, fallen, gotten up and clung to my Daddy as he cleaned out my scrapes and kissed my bruises from the battles I fought (most of my own doing). He has picked me up and dusted me off and sent me back on my way many times, but He has always forgiven me, even when I struggled to forgive myself. I am still not perfect, and have many battles left to fight, but with Jesus at my side I will make it. He is my Father, my shepherd, and most of all my friend. And everyday I strive to be more like His example.