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I have officially just finished my third semester at Azusa Pacific University. A little over one year ago today (December 13th), as I was preparing to head home for Christmas break after my first semester as a freshman, I could hardly wait. This year though, I feel more than under prepared to head home. Since I will be spending next semester off campus and away from all the beautiful relationships I have made here, you could say I'm a little scared. Actually, I am terrified.

"Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won't have a title until much later."

Bob Goff

Let me be real with you. This past semester has been rough. I went into this semester convinced that it was going to be absolutely amazing, that so many good things were in store. I specifically remember having plenty of conversations about how convinced I was that God was going to work this semester into something overwhelming joyful, positive, and just so fun! I would like to say that the following weeks of school then played out in a fantasy of idyllic moments and that my life was a dream. But to my utter shock and frustration, it was the complete opposite. It held what sometimes seemed to be more than its fair share of challenges and moments in which it felt as if God was just throwing one thing after another at me and my roommates. I broke down and entertained the idea of giving up more times than I am proud to admit. Yet in this season of seemingly constant struggle, I have been reminded of some beautiful truths.

Part of me wishes I could type this all out in a less messy way, using bigger words and better word pictures. But instead I will write my messy thoughts, because they match the messiness of my life recently. And you know what? That is okay.

Truth #1: It is okay for life to be messy.

Recently, I feel as if I have been all over the place. I cry at least once a week, if not daily at just about anything that is mildly touching or funny. I get grumpy about things that have never bothered me before. And my normal immense zest for life has felt a little lacking. I have been trying not to simply go through the motions, but have found myself just trying to get from one day to the next, missing the beauty of the current moment I am living in the process. It's been a mess, but I have seen God work through that mess. I have seen that when I feel least in control, God is guiding my world precisely. He has done so by placing lifelong friends in my life when I least expected them and reminding me of some of the following truths.

Truth #2: Being joyful does not mean I need to be happy.

This truth has ruled my past semester at APU. All of the excitement and happiness I felt at the beginning of the school year in believing that God was about to make this semester the best one yet faded faster than I would have liked it to. In fact, I would have really preferred if it had just never faded at all. This semester, as I have said already, has marked one of the most challenging seasons of my life so far. To be completely honest, I cannot even quite pinpoint why. I think there has simply been a lot that God has been changing in me and the relationships around me for the sake of the next chapter in my life that I know is looming so near. In these challenges, I often found myself hiding behind a facade of happiness, spouting left and right that I knew God would provide. While provision is absolutely what He abundantly granted me throughout this past semester, it was still not without its challenges. In these challenges I finally realized the depths of knowing what it meant not to be happy and yet to be joyful. Never once did I find myself facing the roller coasters of emotion and stress and frustration and growth without hope.

Truth #3: All of my life, in every season, He is still God.

The Lord has this way of putting sayings or words into my life at just the right time to sustain me through different chapters of my life. The saying for this chapter has manifested itself as a proven truth as well. Throughout the course of this semester, I have been challenged to really believe just that. In all seasons of life, good or bad, He is God, and for that I can be joyful. Mind you, this is a lot easier said than done. But I suppose that is why it was a challenge.

Truth #4: I do not need to have everything figured out.

It is currently hitting me more and more than I am moving out and leaving APU in three days. As I type in an attempt to hold back tears, the song coming through my headphones just sang, "I guess if I knew His plans, I guess He wouldn't be God. So maybe I don't know, but maybe that is okay." While maybe freshman me from a year ago would not say this same thing, today I will call this statement another truth. And I will proclaim loudly that I do not have any idea what God is doing, I do not know what next semester is going to look like, and I am terrified. Weeks after I first typed this, I still have no idea what is going to happen. I do not know how I am going to pay for the next two years of college. And I do not yet know what exactly He is calling me to. I just know that He is calling, and He has it all figured out.

Truth #5: Vulnerability is a beautiful thing.

It has been through the act of being vulnerable that I have found some of my closest friends, overcome some of the hardest challenges, and learned some of the most radiant truths about my relationship with God. Only in looking back upon this semester have I realize just how vital a role vulnerability has played throughout the different seasons of my life. Admitting all this is just another exercise in vulnerability for me. I would honestly much rather prefer to type up some edited and picturesque recap of my semester to give you the idea that I have it all together. But as I am sure you can tell from the disconnected and jumbles mess that this post has been, and the time it has taken me to write, that is simply not the case. I started this post on the 13th of December, and it has taken me almost three weeks to complete. In this time, a lot has changed.

I don't think anyone ever really likes change. I don't think anyone ever really likes challenges that seem impossible or dealing with situations out of their control. But most of all, I don't think anyone ever likes goodbyes. Yet they happen anyway. A few days after beginning this post, I left APU and had to say goodbye to a life-breathing community of girls that I have quickly begun to call my family. Those goodbyes were ones that I never wanted to face, and it is only for a few months, for crying out loud. New chapters in life call for new changes, so I even went so far as to cut my hair shortly after being home. And now here I sit, saying goodbye to this past season in life, a season that I have actually learned to love quite a lot, because it one in which the Lord has taught me so much. I never realized how beautiful of a life chapter the past year has been until I began this post. I know that anything I am about to face is going to be wildly different, and no experiences are ever going to be quite like the ones I lived through last semester, and that is okay. Looking back on it now, I can actually quite confidently say that last semester was in fact the best one yet. This chapter looked nothing like I had expected, but it was still full of joy and growth and the provision of God. And while I'm not sure it has a title quite yet, what title or plans of mine could be better than the pure movement of the Lord in my life?

"Are you feeling a bit shaken, maybe stirred, maybe fearful and doubtful and completely, utterly, wildly terrified? Good. Keep going."

Victoria Erickson