When the Romance Fades: Reflections on Half of a Sophomore Year

I forgot how nice it is to close a door and have it actually mean, a closed door.

It’s a small gift I’ve taken for granted– the ability to go into my room at home, plug in my mini Christmas tree, swaddle myself in blankets and be alone without a knock on the door of a friend popping in for homework help or to give me a hug.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living in a dorm. It’s the best community I’ve ever had and I wouldn’t trade it. But ahh…to sit and type in a sleepy house? Now, that’s the life.

And as I sit and type, I realize I’m experiencing something I haven’t in a very long time: rest.         
It has been months since I let myself breathe. Whenever I had a “break”, I filled it with socializing. Any spare minute was spent listening to or reading someone’s else’s thoughts, to the point where I had neglected my own.

And looking back on my first semester of sophomore year, man, do I have a lot of thoughts. About a lot of things. 

The joy I felt when my classmates started moving back in after spending three lonely months on an empty campus selling Diet Coke to 2,000 Korean conference students. 

The A-Quad friendship, turned almost relationship, turned ugly, turned back to friendship that put my heart through the wringer. 

The “Mom what am I supposed to do with my life” phone calls and the wise counsel from a plethora of faculty.

 The times I wanted to be a teacher, an anthropologist, a writer, a Spanish professor- all varying by the day, of course, including the day I wanted to transfer schools to pursue songwriting (just one day, don’t worry). 

The strange diagnoses, the embarrassing Saga encounters.

 The day I found out I was going to spend the upcoming summer backpacking through Spain.

And in the background, the scenery painted with logos and memories and unofficial slogans, has been my beloved Wheaton.

I got over my “that would never happen to me, I LOVE Wheaton!” stage. Truth be told, I am no longer in the Honeymoon phase. Sometimes I close my door on Open Floor nights, and even Saga has started to taste repetitive. There’s only so much Broccoli Supreme one can eat before it starts to taste like Broccoli Average.

Sometimes I want to watch Netflix instead of going to a meeting, or skip chapel just because I can.

And at first, I felt disappointed in myself.
            Actually, I felt disloyal. Ashamed.

My whole life, I had dreamt of going to Wheaton. Applying was a no-brainer. I would run home from school every day and check the mailbox with baited breath. The day I got the acceptance letter, I wept when I saw the first letters of “Welcome”, before I had even finished opening the envelope.

I floated through freshman year on cloud 9. I went to every event that I could possibly fit into my 19-hour schedule. I only skipped chapel when I was needed somewhere else, for some other responsibility I saw as nothing short of a “blessing”. Even my homework was fun. I vividly remember calling my mom after my first test during orientation week and saying, “Mom, where am I?! They actually PRAYED before the test!” 

            Little Wheaton rocked my little world and I was completely in love.

Then I got back sophomore year, and it didn’t take long to realize that the relationship had changed. My floor was inhabited by over 20 new residents and the people who should have lived there were spread out all over campus. My friends all had cars and Friday nights were no longer confined to squeezing into a 12x17 room to watch a dumb comedy the boys had picked out. I was too tired at the end of my fourteen hour days to even think about socializing, so going to extra presentations was definitely out of the question.

            My friends were starting to get jaded, I knew. But I decided to resist the urge to settle into normalcy. I didn’t want the magic to wear off. After all, this was the college that God had worked miracles in providing for me to attend. This was the college that time and time again it had been so clear to me that I was called to.

            But eventually, I couldn’t fight it. I found myself making cynical comments, complaining about how much reading I had to do, skipping Bro-sis dinner to eat with my fellow ditching sophomore friends (let’s face it, sometimes you don’t want to make small talk with that guy who’s apparently on your brother floor but you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen).

            Was I falling out of love with Wheaton? Is that even biblical?

What kind of a driven, “For Christ and His Kingdom” student was I if I let that magic die?

A reasonable student, that’s what.

            Freshman year was great, 100%. I was challenged and encouraged in so many ways. I’m sure that every year for the rest of my life, I will look back and tell stories of freshman year. It was Christmas morning every day. I never outgrew the excitement of talking to a new boy (a Christian boy!) or waking up to my floor haphazardly decorated by the brothers, or sitting at Los, munching on chips and salsa listening to hilarious friends tell hilarious stories.

            And that was good for its season. “Freshman Year Magic”, to give it a name, is a very good thing. I believe that getting wrapped up in the joy of being a freshly made Wheatie helped me develop a greater capacity for excitement and thankfulness.

But the mellowness that has accompanied sophomore year is not of a lesser love. It’s a shift in perspective. Like the day we sat huddled around a laptop, waiting in heavy silence for the Michael Brown verdict to be released. With the collective exhale and the tears of my friend, I realized wow, this is something happening outside of the Wheaton bubble that I actually want to be a part of.

The bubble has its uses. It has kept me safe from the demons of my PTSD, has provided people who nurture me in a way unique to these kinds of campuses. But any normal bubble must pop, and how beautiful the glory of God can be in that often messy event.

This semester, I have begun to realize that my love for Wheaton isn't expressed through the activities I do, the number of Facebook posts I write, or the quantity of spiritual conversations I have that contain the sentence "I'm just so blessed to be at Wheaton". 

Am I blessed? Completely. Let's be real, at what other school would the President stand up in front of the entire student body during the first month and tell the story of how he fought depression and didn't see any purpose in living the past year?

My love for Wheaton may not be as explicit, but I can only pray that it is expressed in the ways that I carry out my year. I want to view relationships, conversations, arguments, times of reflection and times of action as ways that I so clearly saw the grace of God. And recognize how incredible it is that I am at a place where I can do those things freely. 

So no, Wheaton is no longer a shining entity that can do no wrong. I see the brokenness, I have experienced the hurt of accusations and misunderstandings and plain old hate. 

But God has worked through it in ways that are life-giving. 

It may be broken, old, and messy, but it's my school. It was my school freshman year, and it still is, even when I feel like nothing more than a jaded sophomore. I am known here, I belong here, I have a family of believers that I get to do life with in all of its often ugly glory. 

And that, my friends, is true love. 

3East

Blessings are people
43 messed up, glorious people
Living behind identical doors
Every story, type of life
Represented
Filled with pain, joy, both
The table we set is beautiful.
Gorgeous light of Christ
Reflected in 43 faces
Laughter and hugs and "We're such girls!"
I'm not sure why they stuck us here
Thin plywood walls a few feet between
Hair in the sinks and wrapped around my toes
Pounding running feet and sleepy-eyed smiles
No, I'm not quite sure why
But I'm glad they did.

This Glorious Dissonance

This Glorious Dissonance

I have a theory. My theory is that truly wise people never plan on being quoted. They throw out words just like everyone else, expecting them to fall by the wayside, but instead, they fall on the ears of someone needing that exact truth.

Wednesday chapel. Midweek and I was already exhausted. The tissues falling out of my pockets were a brief distraction from the sleeplessness carried under my eyes. Maybe my physical sickness augmented how emotionally drained I felt, but I’m pretty sure I would still feel a twinge of broken heartedness anyway. I had relied on promises that were never meant to be made and was suffering the consequences. Icing on the cake- I was thinking about switching majors when I was supposed to be thinking about midterms. In short, I was done.

I sat as a mixed bundle of emotions and numbness. And like many times before in my life, God used one specific way to break through my numbness- music.

Andy Crouch was the guest speaker of chapel. But instead of walking up to the mic, he did a beautiful thing and walked over to the piano.

He touched the keys and Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C Major flowed fourth. Some deep part of myself perked up. Each phrase was tender, seemingly playing itself as he spoke of the contrasting chords in the piece, sounding ugly until you viewed them in light of the whole prelude.

At one point he paused for a split second longer, and said something that hit my heart:

“In the context of this piece, even the dissonance is glorious.”

I don’t know if I’d ever used the word “glorious”. If anything, it was reserved for Sunday morning worship or perhaps in a prayer, proclaiming the attributes of God. Most definitely I had never used the word glorious in this way.

Glorious dissonance.

It’s not something I could define in a sentence. It may not have been something I could have identified until he said it. But I knew that I felt it. I still feel it. I’m still fighting some annoying bug, I’m anxious about losing friendships, and though I feel good about my midterms, two days of fall break have not revealed what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.

My life is steeped in dissonance.

Dissonance is fighting a constant battle. A battle for what will occupy my thoughts, what will take up my time, where I put my energy, my trust, my hope. It is feeling worried when I’m not working, yet exhausted when I am.

I was feeling the affects of this dissonance- badly. And maybe that’s why these words struck me. “Even the dissonance is glorious”.

“Look here, God,” I thought. “This Andy fella can say all kinds of fancy phrases about all kinds of things, but I want You to show me how all this junk can actually be redeemed.”

            And my ever-faithful God started working on my heart.

Glorious dissonance is rooted in knowing that you are small. Think about that for just a minute. I know a few hundred people, out of the billions that occupy this planet.

I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday. Yet I think that I can construct every moment of my entire life out and it will run according to plan.

I fail every day. I fail my friends, my family, God, myself.

I take all of these factors into consideration and realize that I have no idea what I’m doing. Great. Just like I expected.

But what I failed to see before chapel that crisp Wednesday morning was that I am secure in that uncertain place. When I am drawn to my knees, my gaze is turned upward, and I see light that doesn’t come from myself. When I am brought low, I see that my smallness isn’t detrimental. My smallness gives me a wider lens, a grander view of the One who is in control.

And so dissonance is glorious. Because every piece of my life is currently being woven.
 I am an en route being with a hunger for home.
And when this world disappoints, when people hurt my heart, when the plans I’ve had to be a teacher since age three suddenly seem to change, I am reminded that I am not there yet. I am not home.

Yet God still works on me.

I am not taking up space and oxygen. The God of the universe is shaping me every moment of every day. I am a beloved mess of dissonance.

And that is glorious.

This Glorious Dissonance

The bow is posed

Waiting

For the heartbeat of a sign

A smile, a flicker

That this thing will begin

That all will be fine

Out of tune

And suddenly, the long hours

The calloused fingers

Are questioned

The upturn of a downbeat

Sweet reminder of insufficiency

Loss of control

To One who crafted the instrument.

The piece is unknown

The artist unspoken

But the elements align

In a beautiful way.

Color Me Happy

Color Me Happy

Grieving has always been somewhat of an ironic experience for me. When I’m not grieving, I feel like I should be. When I am, I feel like I shouldn’t. I seem unsympathetic when I don’t grieve with others, yet when I grieve alone, I consider myself to be emotional and weak.

And then sometimes, grief just happens.

 Last year was my freshman year of college, and as the anniversary of my dad’s death approached, I found myself warning my roommate: “I'm kind of a compulsive, sporadic griever, and I don’t have any idea of what that’s going to look like this year, so I just want you to be prepared.”

September 12 came, and I woke up feeling okay, until I remembered. Even though I had already been grieving- grieving the anticipation of this day, grieving the news that my cousin had entered hospice care, grieving the loss of life as I knew it (think grief doesn’t come along with going to college? Think again!), I had this heavy feeling that of all days, today was the day I was supposed to be grieving.

            I was a grouch, dragging my feet about the room as I got ready for the day. I wanted sympathy, I wanted Rebecca to say “Oh you poor thing!” and throw compliments and “you’re so strong”s at my feet. I was standing at my closet, pulling out a pair of dark jeans and a black t-shirt when I heard her voice behind me. “You should wear something happy,” she said.

            Rebecca totally caught me off guard. She wasn’t being mean, but she certainly wasn’t babying me, and for some reason I was offended. But I picked out my most colorful shirt anyways.

         

           One of the hardest things of coming to college was the fact that I no longer felt known. I was no longer the super smart kid because practically everyone at Wheaton was top of their class. I was no longer one of the only Christians, no one knew that I was a songwriter or had gone to state for badminton. And most importantly, no one knew that I had lost my dad.

            Suddenly, everything I had found my identity in in high school was stripped away. I couldn’t have expected anyone to know, I didn’t like to talk about it, but I was bitter when the anniversary rolled around and no one in my immediate circles acknowledged the tragedy. 

            But they did compliment my shirt. And in some strange way, it helped a lot. Even if these people I had only lived with for a couple of weeks didn’t know my life story, they knew enough about how to love to throw out a smile and a compliment. It’s the little things on the darkest days that can often mean the most.

            So this morning I woke up, walked to my closet, and pulled out my “happy” shirt.

            I will never be happy I lost my dad. I will never be happy when I watch girls on a father-daughter date, or see my friends’ dads walking them down the aisle. I will never be happy on September 12. But I can wear happy colors, and give people grace.

           Written across the bathroom mirror this morning was “Let Emily Trowbridge know how much you appreciate her today”. I was a soggy mess as I cried while brushing my teeth. Only a few of the freshmen on my floor have any clue as to why the message was there, but they don’t care. They are still showering me with blind love today, just because that is who they are. Acknowledgment of loss is important, and I am so thankful for the friends who I am able to talk about my dad with. But sometimes just knowing you are cared for is enough to make you, well, happy.

            Daddy, I wish you could meet all of these friends who I have been blessed with. Know that your little girl is taken care of, and that she is seeing the joy that God gives.

Color Me Happy

Color me happy

Color me true

Color me roses

Gold trim round the room

Color me happy

All day and all night

Not letting lonely

Fight the good fight

Color me happy

In torrents of grief

Color me raindrops

And brims of relief

Color me happy

As happy I choose

Hurt isn’t always

Just five shades of blue

Kaetlyn

           It is a beautiful thing to look back and see that what has changed your life is not experiences, but rather, people. Seemingly random, much of the time. Like God handpicked me and another person out of all possible corners of the earth, had us share the same piece of ground, and already knew what glorious things would spring up from that communion.

            I want to tell you about one of those people.

      
           Kaetlyn and I met the first day of camp. She sassed me with a smile, and I wondered how I could be so intimidated by someone four years younger than myself. Regardless, the entire camp loved her, and I was struck by how she carried herself, and how well she loved on others.

            On Monday, we were put into groups to begin work on a collaborative project. Having done the “Fab Collab” four years in a row, I knew how stressful and painful it was by nature. Throwing wildly (and diversely!) talented kids into a group to create one product spells death to an artist. The camp director always says that if there are not tears about the Collab by Wednesday, something’s wrong.

            Kaetlyn was in my group, and immediately took on a leadership role. When frustrations arose, for some reason that can only be explained by the divine work of God, she sought me out. And we clicked. Something switched in my brain, and in a heartbeat little Ms. Kaetlyn transformed in my brain from an intimidation factor to a friend.

         
            Picture the most joyous person you’ve ever met. Visualizing someone in your mind? Now. Multiply that image by one million smiles and miles upon miles of joy and you have Kaetlyn. She was spunky and sassy, true, but only out of pure love and joy for the people and the world around her. I admired her spirit, and was excited to see her artistic gifts.

            On Thursday night, Kaetlyn stood up during Open Mic to share a book she had written for school. I shifted in my seat in the back, excited to hear whatever work my young friend had created. I did not expect what came next.

            Kaetlyn started talking, eyes glued to the pages, voice unwavering as she read about how her dad left when she was three years old. Home became a struggle, especially when Kaetlyn’s mom fell into deep depression. Eighth grade rolled around, and Kaetlyn was ready to start the day at school. Her mom had already left for work, and Kaetlyn opened her backpack, and saw a wad of cash, a debit card, and a credit card sitting on top. It seemed out of place, but she continued to school like any normal day. During school, Kaetlyn was called to the main office, and saw the look on the principal’s face. Her mother had committed suicide, he told her. Kaetlyn went to live with her youth leader and his wife, who she refers to as her family. She bravely finished the end of her story, still even-voiced and dried-eyed.

         
            I wept.

            The minute Kaetlyn mentioned the backpack, I knew where the story was going. My hand flew to my mouth, and I spent the next half hour trying to hold back my tears, to no avail. My Kaetlyn had broken me. I have done my fair share of grieving, but I have never grieved that hard for someone else. My soul felt shattered, and I tried to make sense of the horrendous things this high school sophomore had gone through.

            Most of all, I tried to make sense of Kaetlyn’s joy.

            I wept, because never in my life had I seen the truth of the Gospel illustrated so clearly as I did now, written across the face of a fifteen year old girl.

         
           Kaetlyn is not a little girl, but something in her has held on to that childlike faith that Jesus so desperately wanted his disciples to understand. I saw Kaetlyn at some of her breaking points at camp, and I can safely say that she is not always happy. But her unhappiness never veils her joy. Regardless of what the thesaurus may say, happiness and joy are not synonyms. Happiness is temporal, something that feels excellent, but is self-sustaining. Eventually, the self tires, and the happiness runs out. That’s where the beauty of joy lies. The beauty of joy is that it is fueled by an eternal source.

         
          One of my favorite pieces of music is the little tune sung by Christian preschoolers all over America: “I’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart…” However, I like the version by Page CXVI, a Christian band who specializes in revamping hymns. The music video opens with one woman sitting at a piano as she begins to play a series of mournful chords. Her voice warbles “I’ve got the joy joy joy joy…” as she pours her soul out through her lips, the tune full of mourning and sorrow and anguish. I was initially turned-off by the heaviness this version of such a cute little song carried. What I didn’t know was that the woman had created "Joy" the night her dad died from cancer. I shared in this woman’s grief in a very personal way, and I listened to the song again, the haunting tune seeping into my heart, hearing that unmistakable unearthly joy.

         
           “…Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning” –Psalm 30:5. I’d like to think the psalmist also wanted to write, “Joy comes in the mourning.” Mourning? Joy? The seemingly oxymoronic nature of these two words is evident. Because people go through mourning without joy every day. And it is exactly what it is suppoed to sound like: a dark pit of despair.

            But I can’t imagine mourning without joy. I hear it in Page CXVI’s song, I hear it in Kaetlyn’s book, I live it in the daily routine of my family. And in every case, it is because of Jesus. The Bible overflows with truth about joy in trial. James 1, 1 Peter 1, Psalm 27, the list is practically inexhaustible. The entire life of Paul is a testament to the idea of joy in mourning. If there isn’t a greater proof of the existence of God than joy in mourning, I don’t know what is.

     
           By Wednesday of camp, before I had heard Kaetlyn speak, I was still resistant to being dragged down to talk about my sorrows, again. While I was a camper at Masterpiece, I spent years processing my grief, and I was ready for a happy theme. But during personal time with God that morning, I was encouraged to be quiet and open to hearing from God. As I baked under the Kentucky sun, I silenced my mind long enough to hear the words “Be still, and know that I am God” ringing through my head. I did have sorrow, regardless of how much personal grief I was processing at the time. I hurt for the world around me, pained by the news stories of blood and cries that keep me up at night.

           “Be still, and know that I am God”

            Very rarely have I taken that command seriously. How often am I truly still? But when I was quiet in that moment, I understood. Through sorrow, through pain, God is still God. That is something I had forgotten, and makes all the difference in the midst of grief. For it does not fill you with an immediately dose of happiness, but it moves you towards joy.

     
            My Kaetlyn is a special lady. I love her dearly, and I marvel at the fact that God taught me so much about Himself through a young girl I had only known for four days. She has joy, she gets it, and it is a truly overflowing thing.

            So I conclude with one question: Are you taking the time to know who God is? If the answer is no, you’re not taking the time to know joy.

Clothed

What does it look like

To be clothed with joy?

It is a process?
A product?

A Prayer?

I’ll tell you what it isn’t

It’s not a shotgun wedding happiness

A piercing, screeching sudden smile

In a heavy stream of pain.

The famous line “God has a plan…

…right?”

Or plasting on a fake smile.

Being clothed with joy is choosing to see God

For who He is.

Learning to finish your sentences.

Move them from

“I want”

“God, please”

to the final clause:

“…but if not, He is still good.”

Do I get that?

Do I believe

That sorrow’s flower does not bloom from my state of mind

But from God’s state of being?

Why do I doubt when the very name of God is

Counselor

Comforter

Friend.

The morning brings joy

But so does the mourning.