Remember when I talked about community?  Well, I wanted to come here to MTSU in hopes of finding that amazing community.  These first few day’s have been rough on that side of things, though.  I’ve been here for almost a week now and really haven’t met many new people.  My roommate is awesome and i’m so blessed to have someone I can get along with and enjoy being around but one person doesn’t make up that community.  Now, if you know me at all, you know i’m not a social person.  More than likely, if I don’t know you and i’m not in a comfortable environment I won’t say the first word.  I love to talk if you come to me, but I’m just not the initiator.  With that in mind, these last few days have been pretty lonely for me.  I miss everyone.  I really do.  The sense of home has just been ripped right out of me and flipped upside-down.  At the same time, I love it here.

I’ve been thinking about this whole loneliness thing though.  I was so worried about it staying like this.  I just wouldn’t be able to let that happen, yet i felt like i couldn’t do much about it.  Here I sit now, though, with a whole new perspective.

I had thought and prayed about this problem for the past few days now.  While sitting around a couple of hours ago I had this urge to just go outside and play guitar.  Unfortunately, there was loud music blasting outside of our dorm for an event that was going on.  Finally I decided to just get away from the music and find a place to sit and play.  There was this whole awkward walk while I looked around for somewhere to sit.  I would overhear someone say something like, “what’s up with that guy with the guitar?” or something to that effect.  I almost just turned back, too.  Finally though, I decided to plop down in the big circle surrounded by  some of the more popular buildings on campus (the library, business and aerospace, and mass com buildings).  I sat there and quietly played some music.  Nothing loud, no singing, just playing softly.  Eventually I played a song just a tad louder and a guy came over and told me that he raps and is doing some recording and would like me to collaborate with him.  That was awesome.  After we talked and he left, some girls (who were foreign exchange student’s and awesome) asked me to play another song.  I did and talked to them for a bit.  Then, another guy came up and talked to us.  Eventually the girls left and i got to talk to this guy.

I’m so glad I did too.

This guy is such an inspiration to me.  I don’t know why, but something about him was different.  We got to talking and we got into faith and it was just amazing to hear what he had to say.  He was so encouraging, it was just amazing.  He had this amazing story about how he almost died, woke up from a comma, and praises God every second now for it.  After a while though some other people came up and he got me to play for them.  They asked if i’d be back and I said i would thursday (as did someone else earlier).

Eventually we started walking back and then ended up sitting somewhere else talking while he waited for a call.  I showed him ‘How he loves us’ and then we ended up singing ‘Lord I Lift Your Name On High,’ when a girl a while away yelled, “play Sanctuary.”  We got the two girls to come over to tell us what that was, and then we sang it.

I ended up talking to one of the girls till almost midnight.  We got into religion and I still just feel like I missed an opportunity.  You see, one of her parent’s is Christian and the other is Pagen.  She believes a mixture of both.  While I tried to talk to her about what I believed in hopes of her understanding, it really didn’t do much.  Though, we still continued conversing.

I’m a bit discouraged, though.  For the first time in my life I was really put in this situation and I just didn’t know what to do.  I found it hard to figure out what to say.  I feel like there is this part of me missing from my faith.  It’s like this whole defense section is missing.  I’m still confused about what to do.  I just need to learn.. Idk.

Overal though, this night has just been a blessing.  I prayed for community and I have no doubt that this was God’s way of showing me that there is hope.  That I shouldn’t give up.  I do, however still pray that I can learn to defend myself, defend my religion, defend my God.

I’m still praying and i’ll never stop.