Life after community...

Wow I haven't blogged in so long. I decided to try out a new place to blog and change from my AIM blog. We'll see how this goes!

It's been almost 3 months since I have moved to start graduate school at Wheaton and 3 months since leaving Community Life and what a whirlwind of events and emotions it has been. I can't believe that it hasn't been longer!

I got up here on August 17th and plunged into life and school the following week. It was all a little surreal and in some ways it still is. Am I really at Wheaton College one of the most prestigious christian colleges in the country? Am i really in Chicagoland?

Did I really just go from spending an intense year in community to essentially everything that is the complete opposite?

That last question is the one that weighs on my mind most these days. I guess I am finally experiencing the full and complete setting in of the fact that I am alone. Now before I get the rush of responses that I am not alone and have friends and am a good person and yada yada yada, it is more than just an issue of having friends. The past year I spent 90 per cent of my time working, living and doing life with 10 other people....consistently. So much happened over this time. We went through many intense, emotional, fun and memorable times together. It was community; at it's best and it's worst. You name it, we experienced it. It was real. It was raw. It was intentional. It was downright frustrating at times. But it was my life and dare I say....worth every minute. Read about it all here.

Fast forward to August. Here I am in a new place where I know no one, barely the roommates that I am living with. My parents leave and I arrive to a place where I don't even really know who is living here. My first couple weeks at my current residence were pretty rough. I felt so alone and didn't want to deal with it. I was so grateful for when Maggie was here(one of my housemates from last year)about an hour away. I drove to see her a couple times to have some sort of familiarity and semblance of connection. I went to classes and started to try to form relationships with people within my program. It was and still is tough. As much of a seemingly intentional program that it is...there's a disconnect that's happening. I don't know what it is. I felt us getting close but in the end.....cliques happen. I know it's a fact of life but I got to tell you, it's something I haven't been use to seeing in awhile. Last year, my community was THE clique! lol

What an incredibly stark contrast to last year in so many areas of my life. It's hard too because I feel like no one understands the weight of what I went through and the now culture shock type experience I am going through. It's all about that desire to be known, you know? And then after my month in Swaziland this summer...that's a whole other story that I don't even know if I have fully begun to process all that happened there!

Here it is, almost coming up on mid November and where am I at now? To be honest. I am dying to go home. I can't wait! The transition really has been harder than I thought it would be. People that I thought I was getting close to in classes......well I'm just not. I think what it comes down to is that I don't know how to just do normal get to know you relationships. I feel like the past year was so extreme that I don't know how to deal in regular terms and just give time for things! Things didn't readily happen in my community last year, however things were set up for relationships to happen, intentionality was in a sense manipulated to happen. I am looking forward to going home to get refreshed in solid and reliable friendships and family connections.

I say all this to openly admit where I am at. It's hard, I am struggling but it isn't ALL bad. This area is wonderful. Wheaton is a great school with awesome godly faculty who have challenged me and taught me so much, more than I thought possible and I am learning more and more about about myself all the time. Chicagoland is beautiful. It's your typical cluster of suburbs but that aren't too far from the city. Just hop a train and in 30-40 mins you are there and there is SO much to do! I am learning to love the city.

And as much as I feel I have been lacking in the area of connections, I can't rule out everyone. The Lord has blessed me and has put in my path 3 ladies who have been amazing encouragements and sources of relationships while at Wheaton and in the end it's all about quality and not quantity of relationships. The Lord knows what He is doing and He hasn't left me either! I just need to continue to trust and take it one day at a time.

In the meantime, God is teaching me how to be still. He's reminding me that He is what I need and that I can't go to others to satisfy the longing for relationship that I have. He put that longing there and only He can fill it. He's teaching me a log about solitude and loneliness that is healthy when it is loneliness with Him.

I have been studying Henri Nouwen in one of my classes. He talks about this a lot and I look forward to sharing more about this loneliness and solitude in other blogs to come. Thanks for takin the time to catch up and check in! I appreciate any prayers or thoughts to share!