Even though I’ve been a Christian most of my life, one of my biggest struggles has been trusting God with my decisions and putting my life in his hands to trust in his plan for me. Pride and selfishness have led to me choosing my opinion over letting God have a say in my life. My life revolved around myself and what I wanted to do. In high school, at a time when I should have been maturing my faith, I failed to make time for God in my daily life, and my faith and relationship with Christ really felt like a legalistic religion that I just went through the motions of. I was at a Christian missionary boarding school in Africa, and in environments such as that, Christianity can become bland and tedious- kids tend to dislike being told what to do. This led me to want to make my own decisions in life without accounting for God’s plan for me. I also remember being constantly stressed about all kinds of things in high school: relationships, classes, grades, and family. It felt as if these were problems that I needed to fix on my own. Eventually, my senior year came around and it was time to start making some serious decisions for my life, specifically college, and the choices surrounding that. I knew that there was just no way I could handle these decisions on my own, and I turned to God to ask for his guidance.

Senior year is when my faith starts to take a turn for the better. I started to pray and trust God with big decisions in my life and tried to make time for him in my day. I had amazing parents, dorm parents, teachers, and friends who spoke wisdom into my life that year which led to me slowly taking my faith more seriously. As the year went on, my path for the next year became more clear and I got to see how God provided for me, and I knew I wanted God to make more decisions in my life. When you put your trust in God, the storm clouds begin to clear and you suddenly feel so much less stress over things, because the God of the universe has your back and cares for you. I can now find peace in the chaos, for when you put your trust in God, you can be confident God will take you down the path best for you- whether that’s a path you want to go down or not! By letting God take control of your life, He not only guides you down the right path but is always there to love you and be there for you when things are hard.

Over this past summer, my dad suddenly passed away from a heart attack. It was an absolutely devastating loss to me and my family, and I had so much trouble making sense of it. The sudden timing seemed so unfair, as I hadn’t seen him in 6 months, and my dad was in the middle of some amazing missionary work in South Sudan that he wouldn’t get to see through. I was very upset, but I tried not to take my anger out on God because I knew he would be there for me through this. However, at the time, I was more focused on my dad, and I kept wanting him to be there for me, and I wanted to talk to my dad, because… he’s always been there for me. I had trouble accepting that I couldn’t just go and talk to my dad anymore. One day my mom said something to me that changed my perspective on this. “I keep wanting to talk to your father and ask him for help or comfort. But he’s gone now and he can’t do anything. Jesus is the only one who is here for us now.” After realizing this hard reality, I focused my grief and pain and gave it all to Jesus, because he can take all my pain and sorrow and he’s there for me through this all no matter what, and he loves me so much. Jesus has led me down a path of healing since then, and I find my comfort in him when times are hard.

Since I’ve come to college here at UW Madison I’ve been learning to trust God more and more with the decisions in my life, big and small, and give all my troubles to him. I pray constantly about a lot of my decisions and problems, and doing that simple action alone just relieves so much stress knowing I communicated to the almighty God and he loves me and has it all under control. So, the final takeaway from all of that is this: Putting your faith and trust in Jesus is the best decision you can make in life, and wherever you are on that journey, I encourage you to lean more on him in all you do. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” -Proverbs 3:5-7