If I were to write a dictionary full of words I know, this semester would be used in an example sentence about regression. The first three years of my college career have been full of learning experiences, new skills and new things. I started out pretty shaky--what freshman doesn't--but I then I started to get it, learning how to make my way through college and prepare myself for life on the outside. The first three years were filled with such growth. I rocketed to a high point in November of last year, and I made some progress last semester. That semester's growth wasn't as marked as last fall's, but I learned a lot about myself and others all the same.
This semester was different. This semester was a lesson in regression. At first, I thought I was just moving down the mountain into the next valley. I didn't worry too much about it. That's normal. About halfway through, however, I realized that was not the case. Instead of moving up the mountain of progress or down into a new valley, I had slid, was sliding back the way I came. I wasn't moving forward, I wasn't sitting still. I was regressing. Slipping deep into the valley I had so recently climbed, digging deep into the vale that I thought could go no lower. Going down, down, down until I was lower than the beginning, clueless, frightened, and alone.
A second word I could use this semester as an example sentence for is reevaluation. Reevaluation of self, of faith, of friends. Of capacities and life goals, of preferences and relationships. I reevaluated almost every thread in the tapestry of my life and pulled many of these threads out all together, leaving the fabric thin in some places, altogether bare in others. And when I looked at it, I couldn't help but wonder how someone so young could have a life so devoid of direction and perceived meaning.
Somehow in all that digging and deconstructing, though, I never lost hope. Hope that there was something bigger than me and more powerful than my helplessness. That there was Someone who had a plan and a promise of a brighter someday. That same hope that served as a lantern as I was digging and as the loom as I deconstructed, was the same hope that I used to climb out of the mine I had dug around me and the shuttle to weave the tapestry anew.
This semester was about regression and reevaluation. I'm not on top of a new mountain yet, but I'm not in the bottom of that pit anymore. I guess that in itself could be a mountain top experience. It's a different mountain than the one I just slid down. My tapestry doesn't look the same as it did four months ago, but at least it doesn't have holes. I typically look back on a semester and can pull one big takeaway lesson that I can apply to my life, for the rest of my life. This semester is different. This semester was about the reestablishment of what I know to be true. Who I am and what I believe in. This semester was a review, not a new adventure.
The thing that God reminded me of this semester, through circumstances both personal and observed, is that good isn't what makes me happy. Good is what makes me like Christ. And if unintentional regression and forced reevaluation are what accomplish that end, then they are the best things that could happen to me.
If I could trade it all in, I would. Because it's no fun to try to figure out what's going on in your life and why. It's no fun to have to look at the walls closing in around you and wonder why everything was so different now than it was at the start. But thankfully, it's not my choice. It's over. It's done with. It was God's will. And while I didn't like the shadows that I found myself in, it was ok. Because He had been there alone before, and He was guiding me through. All things work together for the good of them that love God. Even the things that I think are bad.
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