College Courage

TAKE HEART

BY SARAH JENKINS

It’s almost unfathomable all that September means to me - it signifies the start of so many unknowns. This month, I enter into my senior year of college and the underlying tone of seeking out my next steps in life. In that same breath, I reflect on all the moments that have gotten me to this point.

As I ponder this month, I can’t help but think about all the ones that have precluded it. Throughout each year of my college experience, I have experienced triumphant victory and crushing heartbreak, but one thing has characterized every season - a consistent opportunity to learn. In the highest of highs and the lowest of lows I have found one thing to be my stronghold, the idea that God has control of it all.

While I consider myself someone accustomed to change, I’ll admit that I despise uncertainty. I am fine with a transition into a new season if I can conceptualize what it will entail, but my inability to understand what comes next often causes me to panic.

In the moments that I feel the uncertainty of my future closing in, I remember how I’ve been brought through each season thus far. When I felt like I was drowning, the Lord reminded me that He was not only a helper in my time of need, but Jehovah Jireh - my provider. In relying on my provider, I have learned some of the greatest lessons of all.

When I was twelve, I decided that I wanted my family to go to the beach for the summer. This, however, was not in the itinerary for that year. Instead, my desired beach trip was replaced with a family reunion at my uncle’s lake house. When I told my mom of my disappointment in not doing both, she told me to pray for God to make a way. What we would come to realize, though, is that He would do it in a way far different than we initially expected.

Having lived in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time, my heart ached to go to the beach constantly. I prayed for a trip, but in a very roundabout way, God gave me an entirely new reality. While I didn’t get to go to the beach that summer, God moved my family to West Palm BEACH in the fall.

It didn’t happen the way I expected nor the way I asked - but it happened in a way that only Jehovah Jireh would work. It happened in the way that He would fully be able to provide and the way that He would fully help me to learn.

A verse that I constantly fall back on is one that has sustained me through all seasons - in the times I think I know what God is doing, and especially in those I don’t. Jesus says in John 16:33 (NIV), “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you may have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!”

It’s a simple and very well-known verse, but one that gives hope even to the most hopeless. It commands uncertainty to scatter and maintains that there is no one more in power than God.

As I enter this new and mostly uncertain season of my life, I rely on the promise that my God has overcome the world. In all the troubles we may have, we must simply take heart.