I thought I was ready for college. At home, I was relentlessly taught by my mom how to be independent at home. I could clean bathrooms, vacuum, take out trash, balance a checkbook, cook dinner, change my oil, get a smog check, and the list could probably go on. Coming to college, however, proved this speculation wrong. After being in Wheaton for a mere 11 days, I was realizing just how dependent I really was. Homesickness totally struck and when asked by my mom how I was doing, I just answered with tears. I felt lonely, very lonely. It’s not that I don’t have friends in college because on a wonderful side note, god has been providing for me in that way. After praying for Him to just bring people into my life, I’ve met and had some pretty deep conversations with 3 amazing girls. There definitely are people here that I can share my heart with. But back to the feeling lonely… I ended up crying with my mom for 15 minutes on the phone, just about how I missed friends and being at home where I was constantly with people who understood and cared for me. After thinking that I had my tears under control, I bud my mom an “I Love You” and went back to my wellness homework. While in the lounge, however, I bumped into one of the sophomores and probably noticing my swollen eyes she asked me how I was doing and if I was tired. With that, I again just couldn’t control the moist ater that began runninh down my cheeks. She was only slightly embarrassed, but began just listening to me in between sobs, then prayed for me in Spanish (she’s from Colombia), and then gave me some wise words of wisdom.
She told me that it really took going to college to realize what real independence was. She said that you really learn how to rely solely on God and make Him your ultimate purpose in life. It’s where it’s just you and Him. Total dependence and Him and independence from others.
I guess this made something really click in my mind because you see, I had always understood that people should try to be complete in Christ when it came to relationships. A person needs to be full themself before they enter into a relationship with someone else, or else it will just be one person needing someone else and that would never make a happy couple… well it could.. but it didn’t seem ideal. This concept, I realized can apply to friends as well. A lot of times I enter into relationships with people because they fill up my “love bank” in some way. I mean friends are supposed to make you feel happy. Too often though, I let my friends try to fill up that void for love, but then end up still feeling empty. It’s that hole that God really wants to reside in. He wants me to bring my broken self to Him and there he will heal me and make me whole. I can then bring that new, revived, redeemed, transformed self into new friendships and heck perhaps a relationship eventually.
This makes me think of the snow retreat theme verse too 
2 Corinthians 4:16
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
Lord, I want to be renewed my you each day. I need to be renewed by you each day.
Hope that you’re feeling better by now. BSF is starting up in a couple weeks; I’m shure that we will miss you! I might add that the layout looks very clean
Jen, you have nooooo idea how perfectly I identified with your post. Coming to Cal has been really hard for me, especially with finding friends and finding a fellowship I really fit in with. But I think being “homesick” is not at all a bad thing, especially because we long to be in our Heavenly home with our Heavenly Father. God has definitely made His authority in my life known since I came to college, and I’m so excited to surrender everything to Him (even though that may be really hard) and just let Him take me on a wonderful mission during my four years here at Cal.
Hope everything’s going well at Wheaton, and email/facebook me sometime, I’d love to know how you are doing! I’ll keep you in my prayers
Hey Jennifer!
God’s been teaching me to do that for awhile too now, haha. Really really glad to know that you’re depositing your experiences with God onto others, so that His love may be shown and known.
I don’t know if these two verse apply to you right now, but for the past week or so, God has these two verses really ring in my life right now.
“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
Continue to give Him your heart, sis! Be strong and courageous.
In Christ,
Wesley
Praying for you.
Guess who got WordPress.
JENNIFER I TOTALLY KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT even tho i havent left home yet… i know very well that i will be extremely homesick. in fact im homesick already… ANYWAY, WHAT YOUR SPANISH FRIEND TOLD YOU WAS EXACTLY WHAT GOD TOLD ME TO COMFORT ME, WORD FOR WORD wow we really do serve the same God. i shall be miserable as i adjust, so please pray for me and i will pray for you too. :] i love you jenn.
Hey Jennifer!
I could really identify with what you said about how we shouldn’t look for friends to fill our void…because it’s SO true–we end up feeling so empty–often even emptier! after searching for fulfillment…it just reminds us all over again that we have a God-shaped hole, and God is the only one who can fill it.