Lost and Found

Hello my darling readers. Yesterday, like all days, was the first day of the rest of my life! Unlike all other days, yesterday was also the beginning of my second semester at college. This is a fact that, a week ago, caused me much trepidation. A week ago I was home, comfortable and happy and spending all my time with my family, and going back to school seemed a terror. But it was good; I was going to college and I was going to learn all about the world around me! To convince myself of this, last Friday I took a look at my schedule. My schedule told me that six hours a week I would be sitting in a Bible class. Excellent! No complaint there. An hour and a half a week I would be in an English class. Also wonderful! I would be learning! And another fifteen hours a week I would be sitting in art classes. Realizing this, my heart sank. Art classes were great and all, but drawing for fifteen hours a week would be fifteen hours a week of school in which I would hardly learn anything. I wailed. I complained. I bemoaned these classes to my dad, to which he replied, "You know, you can always change your classes."

A revelation! I set to rearranging my schedule immediately. I wanted to learn, I wanted to take classes that reminded me I am in school. Math, I decided, would be the perfect solution. So I looked through the course catalog at math classes and decided on Introduction to Probability and Stats. That was sure to be something of a challenge. I added the class as well as another, Foundations of Global Studies, and gazed at my new and improved schedule affectionately. I was really a student! I was going to college and I was going to learn things!

So, yesterday I put on my sparkly purple shoes and set out with a great excitement for my classes and a fresh zeal for education! I found my way to my first class without a problem, noting all the people I knew in that class. "I have friends!" I thought to myself. What a joy! The first session of that class hinted that it would be difficult, but well worth the effort. Exactly what I was hoping for. So off I went to the next class, my friend and I getting slightly lost on the way and arriving a few minutes late to what looked to be another excellent class. And finally, when that class was over, it was time for Math! I was going to stare at numbers and learn about statistics and feel like I'm definitely in college! I headed over to my class room and looked in the window. There was another class in there, one that had clearly been going on for a while. "That makes sense," I thought, "My class doesn't start for another six minutes." So I found a place to sit down and read for a few minutes while I waited. A few minutes passed. It was 1:15. My class started at 1:15. I looked in the window; the other class was still there. I checked my schedule. I checked the room number. I paced back and forth. Maybe I wrote it down wrong. Maybe this was the wrong room! I ran to the nearest office and begged to look up the classes on their computer.

"Which class?"

"Probability and Statistics!"

"Oh, the one at 1:30?"

...Oh. So I made it to class a few moments later only slightly embarrassed by my apparent inability to read my own schedule. And I am struck once again by my ability to get lost even when my directions are clear, even when I have read them over time and time again. I can always manage to miss something, to get myself lost again. But luckily for me, I serve a God who knows this about me and goes far and wide to bring me back. In Luke 19:10 Jesus said, "For the Son of Man [that's Jesus] came to seek and to save what was lost." I'm amazed to know that even when I foolishly get myself lost over and over again, my Lord seeks me out and brings me back. That's what he came for.

Truly His,
Caroline