When reading an account through my eyes, you won’t come across eloquent words or bizarre statements gilded with superficial expressions. You’re more likely to find a very simple, very straightforward retelling of the events that have essentially transpired since my arrival at UNC-Greensboro. What took place in a mere semester, threw me through a few of the largest ups and downs I may have ever experienced in my short 19 years. But I’ll get to that soon. It might be more prudent to give myself a bit of an introduction.
HEY KIDS! I’m Nate. I’m a cellist, a linguist (albeit self-proclaimed), a friend to many, an enemy to few, and above all else, a follower of Jesus Christ.
Living, loving, and being myself is essentially what started me off on this whirlwind of a semester. Starting out at college, I knew that I would come to find whatever I went looking for. If I wanted wild parties and promiscuous sexual encounters: HEYA!! There they are; I found them!! If I wanted join a fraternity (essentially the same wild parties and promiscuous sex scandals but with some drugs thrown in…) well, there they go! I would find it! If I went looking for Christians and good people, I knew I would likewise find them. So that’s what I set out to find. My first few days at school were spent hanging out with the people in my dorm and getting to know my roommate, but once classes had started up, I began the hunt to get to know people and find my clique. I’ve always been fairly outgoing and very friendly, so it wasn’t hard finding people to talk to. As a cellist performing in the symphony orchestra, I am assigned a stand partner. My stand partner is a really wonderful girl named Mae (I'm changing her name to protect her identity, and yes, Mae is the band that Annaliese, Derek, and Kristen love), and it was an amazing experience getting to know her. We talked together, hung out together, began going to church together, and it was bliss! She, myself, and a few other people went to church and classes together and we became inseparable. We shortly became best friends and I was beyond content. Months went by with no problems until one night Mae and I ventured a party for string players. After the party had gone on for a while (I was off on my own having merry conversations about Germany) I came to find that my best friend, an underage Christian, had been drinking. I didn’t know what to do, so I left. The choice to leave the situation had a dramatic impact upon our little group and for the next few days I was literally ostracized. No one would talk to me, interact with me, or even look at me. Even at church, my friends were avoiding me. The question was why? Why was I being treated like this when I did the right thing by leaving a bad situation? I didn’t know and I prayed like I’d prayed in few other instances in my life. God gave me the strength to face the group and to talk it out. Mae’s drinking had brought other issues to surface, and we began to work fixing everything. We did! Everything was fixed (at least we had thought), but we were happy and once again we were the cheerful little group we had once been. It’s difficult to explain where that led. It’s such a blur in my own mind that I’m not sure what to make of it, or how I’d write it down, but I’ll do my best.
Our church does an amazing Christmas program every year, and part of setting up that program is getting the orchestra ready. The orchestra at the church for the most part consisted of the people within our group of friends, and it was growing so rapidly that God was getting all of my praise. The problem was, however, that some people didn’t want to commit to it. People didn’t show up to rehearsals and began to skip out on playing on Sundays altogether, and needless to say, my best friend Katie and I confronted it and told them that they needed to get it in gear. The church took very good care of us and the least anyone could do was to show a little appreciation by doing what they signed up to do. The director of the orchestra would drive the van over every Wednesday to pick us up for practice, and then many times, he would take us all to Steak’n’shake afterwards and pay for our dinners if we hadn’t already gotten our meal before rehearsal. In short, people were being ungrateful and for all that the church had given to us. People were unwilling to give back the only thing there was to give. Their 15 minutes of playing on Sundays.
Tensions ran high, and I began to feel like it was time for me to find new friends. There was unresolved bitterness from the last blowout and little arguments began to resurface and escalate. New things were blowing up such as dating issues between guys and gals in the group and the strain of people leaving and joining the group was causing more stress of its own. I was just tired of dealing with the petty high school drama. It was back to being me and God.
In the past, we used to always do homework together in Mae’s room, but since I was for the most part finished with them, I wanted to get away. So I went to seclude myself to study in the library. The library was a good place to study, but how could I study in a little box? I couldn’t. So I took all the stress to God. Once I had decided that I couldn’t sit alone anymore and that enough was enough, I got up and walked my poor bike back to my dorm. My bike was having (still is having) issues with gears and the seat that I’ve not had time to look at yet, but coming back to the dorm, there were two girls that I had seen regularly in the music school and walking around campus. I had never said anything more than “Hey, how are you?” to either one of them, and yet here they were standing at the front door looking very torn up about something.
Stressed about my own issues, and seeing that they were upset was a good opportunity to get my mind onto other things by showing some compassion and being there for someone else. So, with my friendly self and my dejected bike (which they still make fun of me about) I started up a conversation. After saying hi, and introducing myself, they introduced themselves as Annaliese and Kristen and told me they were having some deep girl talk, but I said something to the effect of: “Awesome let’s go inside and talk about it then! You need someone to talk to, so I’ll listen!”
That night was the first night that I knew God was working. We got along so well, and Annaliese told Kristen and me about her fight with PCOS, and the other things she was dealing with in her life. I had just met the poor girl and already she was telling me her life story. I didn’t understand how she could open up to a complete stranger, and at once I had the greatest respect for her. I couldn’t feel sorry for the pains she had gone through or the trials she had persevered, I could only look up to her. The things that I dealt with in my life were so insignificant compared to this girl’s fight that I had no choice but to ask her how. I asked her about God, and she told me how much God had helped her through, and I was so relieved to find out that the same God that had never failed to bring me through was also being there for someone else. The relationship between the three of us began to feel so natural that despite having known each other for a few hours (it was well into the night when we went off to bed) it felt as though we’d known each other our whole lives.
So the friendships grew. I began eating lunch with them and was finally introduced to Derek, who just like Kristen and Annaliese, was someone I instantly clicked with. Very quickly, we became very close and almost as inseparable as Mae and I had been, but I was still hesitant to commit to a friendship when the last one wasn’t resolved yet. The stress and pain leftover from my last friends was still tearing me apart. Weeks went by, and at church and in class, there was that same tension. I was so tired of it. So, I prayed again, and asked for the strength to let God do whatever He wanted to do. God apparently wanted me to confront the issue head on one last time. So I did. I talked to Mae after our rehearsal one night, and I put everything out in the open. I kept nothing from her, and I believe that she was equally forthcoming. This wasn’t something that was easy, in fact I was almost in tears thinking about our lost friendship and blabbing my heart out to her. How had something so good turned into something so awful? But, she and I made our amends, and I followed her to her room and apologized to everyone and gave them my bit. It was a wonderful feeling of relief! I knew that with this, we could all go back to being great friends again, but this time we’d be stronger! But… standing in that room with all those smiling faces, and all the hope that was in me to get things back how they were was overshadowed by this small realization that I really didn’t want to go back to them. When I left the room and walked back to my dorm building I knew that I would never set foot in Mae’s dorm again, and that I had made my peace with them. Peace (for me anyway) in this situation was letting go.
God didn’t want me dealing in that relationship anymore for some reason that I didn’t yet understand, and even though I only knew Annaliese, Kristen, and Derek for a couple weeks, I did know that I was willing to give up everything I used to have for the three of them. God works in amazing mysterious ways. There are people He puts into our lives: friends for seasons and friends for lifetimes and both are equally important. While Mae and I were best friends for a season, and we’ll get along fine, I know that what I have with Kristen, Annaliese, and Derek is going to last for a lifetime!
(left to Right)Nathan, Derek, Annaliese, and Kristen on the way to Coffeeology
0 comments:
Post a Comment