College Life, Faith and the Pursuit of Truth

           At first this post idea started out as more a research topic- about the reasons why college students end up walking away from their faith. However, I am going to let my writing take a life of it's own. :) I know in my own personal journey through college - I graduated from a Christian high school then went onto a Catholic university. This was short lived because I really wasn't crazy about the major/ program I was in. Honestly, the Catholic presence was barely existent. It’s presence was felt by each student being required to take 3 classes of philosophy / theology credits. I guess I should be thanking them for that one! I actually learned a whole lot from my philosophy classes. I learned more about myself and why I believe what I believe and for the reasons I do. The theology classes, however, were a much different story! LOL The nun that was teaching (Yes I said a NUN! A little old, nun in a full habit!! She also taught calculus -- ohh that was "fun" -- NOT!!) she must have only read the bible a couple of times, perhaps in her whole life because she always confused the names of the characters and stories. Sometimes it was quite comical and unfortunately there was only a few of us who chuckled at the obvious errors. One such comical error, Lazarus was up in a tree trying to reach Jesus and Zaccheus was the friend who had passed away. (So there was a dead guy in the tree.) It was those of us who were brought up as church goers that really taught that class. It was a good experience when we weren’t annoying her by telling her to look up the story and read it again!  When she was particularly annoyed at us, we would all get writing assignments - so the versed became more knowledgeable and most likely more annoying . You would think she would have caught on. :) hehe

          After leaving Florida, I moved to Boston to finish up my college education. I had been majoring in Biology/Chemistry with several minors. I was just about done with the biology portion and went into engineering technology. I was a bit of a pioneer for my time I guess you can say – I was interested in the field of bioinformatics. Unfortunately, there were only a few schools in the early 2000’s that had this program so I kind of set out to make my own program. It was here in Boston, that I found myself in a completely different environment than I had ever been before. This was the first time that I was on my own and allowed to make whatever decisions I wanted. I was 20 years old in a different state, city and school. No family, no friends, no church- in essence no support system. Talk about a wakeup call!! Yes, it was but I was also very excited about the life I was going to lead. I wanted to be a person who would make a difference. I wanted to go somewhere and be somebody. This was the secular university experience and I sought after. I no longer wanted to be consumed by my Christian bubble I wanted to be relevant to the world around me, which almost thrust me into a whole heap of trouble. It wasn't until I had that in the mirror moment that I asked myself a vital question: Who and what are you really trying to be? I may have been fooling my friends but in my heart I knew I wasn't fooling anyone, especially not God. I only towed the line on certain issues but that was enough of a wakeup call for me. There was a lot of background noise going on in my life at the time with my family; which nearly threatened to destroy everything I had ever known. It was a time of some serious upheaval in a way most people could never imagine. I will never forget my step mom calling me and telling me, with a tearful voice, that she had heard a song on the radio and God had placed me on her heart. She told me she was going to buy me this CD and send it to me. All I can say is that it was the message from God that I needed to hear at the most perfect moment!! The song was God is in this Place. The lyrics of the song were gentle reminders that God knew the sorrow and pain I was going through, he knew my heart and everything I was and more importantly He longed to set me free!! I remember it was at that moment that I got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me for going and living my own way and for blaming Him for everything that had gone wrong in my life. I read a book by one of the guys in the band which ended up having the most amazing impact on my life back then and even today. I got down on my knees after reading this book and made God a lot of promises that I have kept to this day. (only by His grace!) I realized that while trying to live my own life and pushing God to the side my happiness and joy were stripped away from me. I no longer loved to sing and I no longer had a desire to go to church. I more or less told Him to leave me alone and that I didn't need his kind of love. How foolish of me! This downward spiral continued until that day in my dorm room I heard God call to me through music. This music had to first be heard by my step mom, she had to go and by the CD and send it to me in Boston – it went through quite the journey to finally reach me. It was in that moment, I realized that God must really love me to go through all of this trouble. Also, not to mention the numerous times he saved me from myself - from making terrible choices when I had brushed Him aside. He patiently looked for my return to Him. It was in this moment that I experienced God's true, genuine and unfailing love. It’s not the human conditional type of love but the kind of love that no matter what is always waiting for you. I have never been the same since! It should be said -- I don't ever want to go back to that hopeless period of my life, not after I have experienced the freedom and joy that comes with being in the center of His will for my life.
      
          In conclusion, it was while attending secular university that nearly robbed me of my faith. God wouldn’t let that happen and in fact I ended up learning so much about myself, the people around me, lessons on character / values and most importantly the kind of person I wanted to end up being. To me now this experience has been invaluable. It has deepened my relationship with God and allowed me more insight into who He is and also where the church seems to be failing these young people in college. The reason being is that they are not prepared to defend their faith, they are not versed in the truths and common myths - simply said there just isn't enough of a solid foundation to sustain the scrutiny and so they crumble. In addition, when you attend these universities you have access to everything and anything - it's practically handed to you on a silver platter. It takes a very strong individual to abstain from participating in these "extra curricular activities" there has to be a strong sense of right and wrong instilled in a person- this is something I am so greatful to have had instilled in me prior to entering college. It saved me from so much heart ache!! To top it off, you have professors trying to undermine the very nature and existence of God down to nothing.There is an agenda for higher learning- they claim in the name of intellectualism that evolution is the answer to everything. They claim it explains everything while leaving humans with a meaningless existence and they call this enlightenment. But for anyone who has ever studied a cell, DNA or some of the more complicated mechanisms like transcription, translation and duplication of DNA -- and to still say that a few molecules came together to form this highly complex system – it seems to be an impossible assumption!! Yet they claim this is the case -- it is truth. However, we are the idiots for saying so. Thanks to college universities and the doctrines they so willingly shove down our throats and call it truth—this I believe is the reason many college students lose their faith through the whole collegiate experience.