The end but also the beginning.

While the end is coming on my 4 years as an undergrad student, I can't help but think back to the beginning. Actually, a little bit before the beginning...the summer of 2010 before I started my journey at JMU.

One week after my high school graduation, I went to Nicaragua on a missions trip. It wasn't my first missions trip, but this week in particular really wrecked me for God's kingdom. After returning from this trip, I was heading out to Triple R Ranch to be a camp counselor for 5 weeks. A week after I was done at camp, I would be heading to JMU.

My time as a camp counselor that summer was difficult but amazing. Groups of young girls looking to me for guidance. One group in particular LOVED hearing my Nicaragua stories and I of course loved sharing them. Each week of camp, though, I got more and more anxious for college. Was I making the right choice? I mean, I only applied to JMU...what if I was meant to be somewhere else? What if I'm supposed to just do missions right now? These were the questions swirling through my head every minute of every day.

One time my friend and I just sat for hours and talked about how we didn't want to go to college...we just wanted to love people full time. My heart was thinking about Nicaragua while her's was thinking about Uganda.

Thinking about this conversation I had with my friend makes me tear up now. God is so faithful and He is so good. He leads us where we need to go and JMU was where I needed to be these past 4 years. I've learned things here that I know I wouldn't have learned anywhere else through specific people and through the atmosphere that is JMU.

That conversation now is funny to me because I've learned a lesson in college related to loving others. Coming back from missions trips is always difficult for me because my heart is in that other place. I went to Nicaragua summer of 2010 as well as summer 2012 for two months. The months right after those trips were difficult. Being at school didn't seem important to me because I knew that people were suffering around the world.

Then, the summer of 2013 happened. It was my first summer living at home since high school. I was working out at the Oceanfront at a pool bar and grill. God reminded me of the most valuable lesson I think we can ever learn:

That we should love people wherever we are. Love is constant because God is love and God is constant. Love is one thing that never changes no matter where we are.

As this season of my life ends, this is a lesson that I hold on to. Loving others is something so important to me because it it the easiest way for me to be an extension of the hands and feet of Jesus. Things will definitely be changing in the next year or so. I am starting grad school here at JMU for a year starting May 19th, so I will graduate with my masters in May 2015. In the meantime, most of my friends are heading off into the world to do great things. It is a weird transition, a difficult one, but I will hold on to my ability to love others because that is what I am called to do.