Since having started blogging last year, I’ve been chronologically recounting my life and documenting it via posts on this blog, albeit in brevity. My hope is that through this God will be glorified by a testimony of undeserved grace in my life. In this post, I’m just about to enter college. Check out these posts to know how I got here.
I don’t remember much about the summer of 2001, but I sure do remember how it ended. About the third Saturday in August, with the help of a few family members and my cousin, we loaded up enough stuff to fill a third of a dorm room and took off on the 50 mile trek to Champaign-Urbana where I would spend the next four and a half years of my life.
When I signed up for the ACT, I had my results sent to various universities, including the University of Michigan, Bradley University, Rose Holman, and Purdue. In hindsight, I’m not really sure why I sent it to all those places, because financially they were all out of the question and the University of Illinois was the obvious choice, especially considering my choice of an engineering major (the U of I is a Top 5 engineering school in the country), but I think I liked the idea of moving further away from home. I’m not sure.
I remember the admissions process to the U of I. Who would have thought that someone second in their high school class with a perfect GPA, an ACT score of 28, and extracurricular activities out the wazoo would be a bubble applicant? Well that was me. So I had the privilege of waiting a couple extra months to hear of my acceptance, but I made it. I guess that’s the way it goes when applying to a top-notch, internationally renowned Mechanical & Industrial Engineering program.
For me, the University of Illinois was the first true mark of independence in my life. No more parental harassment and authority would be lorded over this man! Yes, freedom at last! No more curfew, or lectures about attitude and behavior and respect! Just what I needed in my life.
Well, with all this new found freedom, and a little help from peer pressure in the dorms, I apparently lost some focus, or perhaps never really had it from the beginning, and forgot exactly why I was at the university. Instead of learning how to be a successful engineer, I spent most of my time learning how to successfully navigate the college party scene, fraternities, sororities, bars, and to nurse an excessive hangover while sleeping through an 8 AM lecture. And I rode this bus all the way to academic probation…
Since I was off to such a great start with my mechanical engineering degree, I decided to work a bit harder at it and spent my second semester starting to dig myself out of the hole I was in at the time. This wasn’t an easy task, but in the process, I realized a few things. I didn’t really want to be a mechanical engineer, but actually an agricultural engineer. I had always nurtured a desire to stay involved with agriculture, but it wasn’t until at the U of I that I learned of agricultural engineering as a degree option and how I could fulfill my dream of working for John Deere with that degree. Plus I liked the idea of being 1 out of 130 compared to 1 out of 2000.
Now don’t get me wrong, my priorities at the U of I were still not aligned to where they should be, but at least I had realized that something had to change or I wasn’t going to be there long. But you could guarantee that as soon as the homework got done, I was out on the town, set for a good time.
I had a few rather rough incidents during my U of I years, more of which I’ll elaborate on next time. But finishing that first year, I was just glad that I was allowed to come back for a second. I was learning that with more independence comes more responsibility. I was learning some life lessons the hard way. My parents didn’t want me to take any classes at the “school of hard knocks,” but I was already enrolled. These were the things that my parents were trying to shield me from but that I was too stubborn to accept.
In a similar fashion now, I have the teachings of God in front of me. As one of His elect, He desires for me to live in holiness and tells me what that requires in the Word. The difference is that I now don’t have to trust in myself to follow through. You see, He has already promised me the grace to persevere! So now I walk in grace, confident that any situation I encounter is for my own personal sanctification and is bringing my spirit and person more in alignment with that of Christ Jesus. Believe me, you want this confidence too. Faith in Christ is the only way to get it…Believe.
Grace to you!
JAE
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