A piece of My path

I graduated from a fairly small high school in 2021, I mean I pretty much knew everyone in my graduating class.  I remember that fall my parents and I packed up the car and headed an hour down the road to Chapel Hill. College, I was so excited but at the same time, I was so nervous. I was scared I wasn’t going to make any friends, that the classes were going to be hard, or that I’d get lost trying to find those classes. I remember my dad telling me, “just think about it as a sleepover, one day at a time.” So, that’s what I did. The upcoming weeks were difficult, my roommate was one of the sweetest people ever, we just didn’t have much in common, especially when it came to my Faith and how it was being affected. She wasn’t a Christian and as much as she listened and tried to understand where I was coming from, she just couldn’t. Which was like most of the people I met. So coming from a school where most people went to church on Sundays to a school where students could care less about God, that was a tough transition for me, I felt like I was alone. I remember sitting at my desk one night, (my roommate had gone out) and I just cried, I cried out to the Lord, I was scared and I was upset that he allowed me to come to this place and left me here by myself, I missed my friends, my parents, and my sister. I’m pretty sure I cried myself to sleep that night. The next night I decided to dig into his word and spend time with him, and boy was that a game changer. I may not have had a physical human with me, but what I did have was God. When I finally learned to lean on him and realize he was all I needed, I didn’t feel so alone.

 He then sent me some of the best friends I could have asked for. So there’s a funny backstory to this. In my sophomore year of high school, my mom convinced me to go to this leadership camp at Wake Forest. It was an overnight thing and the only other person from my high school and I split up. I remember meeting my group and in my group, there was this girl with the same name as me, (even spelled the same!) Well, fast forward three years there I am eating dinner alone, waiting for the weekend to come up so I could go home when all of a sudden I see this girl who looks oddly familiar. I ended up building the courage to go talk to her, it was the girl from the camp. She didn’t remember me immediately, but she ended up inviting me to a bible study that week. I went and met some amazing people and ended up becoming a part of this Christian group that has students like me who want to spread God's word. Sometimes I look back and think about how crazy it is that God orchestrated all these events because he knew what freshman Lilly would need and when she would need it. I still wouldn’t give up those first two weeks though, they may have been challenging but that time alone allowed me to realize what relationship was most important in my life, the everlasting one. So when things are difficult and you feel alone just lean on him, because you never know where he could take you.