Merge

       If there is one thing I am super looking forward to this next coming semester at Trevecca, it’s our Merge group. Last semester Josh and I started a Merge group called One, it was one of the most awesome experiences of last our freshmen year and we are stoked to get it started again.

     We met in our home. I think the first time we got together we only had about four other students besides Josh and I, but as we continued to meet, more of our friends began to come. More than fifteen new friendships were made thanks to One, some of them have become our best friends. It became a safe place for students to trust one another and begin to have real conversations and friendships that both challenged and strengthened each other.

     Some nights we just ate together and prayed for one another, shared life together. I’ve discovered through those nights that God will bring the most wonderful people, with beautiful lives, into my heart if I will just open my heart to love His creation. I so hope to discover more people this year…

     We had One the night after the Soul Force group had come to the Trevecca campus. I’ll never forget that night, it wasn’t one filled with hateful speech or raised voices, but one of honest conversations and thorough study of the scriptures. It was a place where respect and love for each other, despite our different approaches and opinions, held us together as we sought the truth of God’s word.

     Which brings me to what we hope to study with our Merge group over the next two semesters… My parents have taken several groups of their friends through a study called the Truth Project. It is a Bible study curriculum that focuses on the fundamental truths revealed to us by the Bible and also encourages us to engage our culture through the lenses of these truths. The majority of students who profess to be Christians in high school lose that profession of faith at some point in their college years and Josh and I both feel like this is a scary realization and we’ve seen it play out in our own friends whom we’ve grown up with. We’re so thankful to go to a Christian school here at Trevecca, but in our experience last year, we know that not everyone here is totally sure where they stand. It’s time for developing our own faith and our own morals, not just living by what our parents do.

      We’re so excited to start this new venture with our merge group. Just one of the wonderful things I so love about my Trevecca community…

a moment of peace...

     The daily life of a college student is nothing short of incredible. We eat, sleep, study, go to class, go socialize, go to church, go to merge, and go coning at 2:30 in the morning on occasion… Go, go, go. It wouldn’t be surprising that a college student would welcome the summer. And so have I this year. But even in the ‘calm’ of summer Josh and I have found ourselves caught up in a whole different hussle and bussle of life. This crazy thing adults call "work". That’s right, good ole' fashion, 40 hour a week, put food on the table, work. Josh and I are managers at a new Chick-fil-a out in Lebanon, TN and for the past three months we’ve felt like we have been there more than we have been at home, at least at times. On top of that we have accepted the position of worship leaders for our church’s youth ministries, CYM. We anxiously accepted the opportunity to exercise our Worship Arts training from TNU, a degree that we’re still pursuing… I feel like we’re always in a battle with the calendar, a losing one I’m afraid. See, I don’t think its just school that makes us so busy, it’s a generational thing. We live in a land that is full of opportunity with countless means of networking to help us reach those opportunities. Everything we put into our schedules are usually great things. We want to make our parents proud and achieve more than they did with the new advantages we now have in this age. But when will it become too much? When will we just close our color-coded daily planners and just say, ‘I’m done’? But we can’t do that, we can’t survive that way, so how do we prioritize? Or how do we find more energy? It’s my generation’s struggle, I’m not sure how it will end.

     In all this craziness we call living, I do however, manage to find enough grace for a peaceful, restful moment from time to time. Yesterday morning was just perfect. I woke up to the beautiful sound of rain and a cool breeze blowing through our bedroom. Josh was still asleep and we didn’t have to be at work for a few more hours so I let him snooze. In awe of the beautiful morning I sat down with my Bible and some green tea and began to read. I found myself captivated in the book of James. And although there’s a multitude of revelations in that small book, one stuck with me yesterday; the man that masters his tongue and does not let it cause him to stumble, shows great maturity and spiritual growth. How often do we judge and slander our fellow bearers of God's image and yet think we can praise the Lord with those same lips. I've read this passage, and heard sermons on it before, and its true. I need to live like I believe it.