Maggie's Trek 3- Growing Up

I used to wear these amazing (in my 17 year old point of view) khaki JNCOs. My shirts came out of the Goodwill 99¢ tee-shirt bin. On Wednesdays the new shirts would arrive and I would spend my time before youth group digging through the bin. I quickly developed an impressive tee-shirt collection. I wore a grungy hemp necklace and hemp anklet. Leather American Eagle clogs clad my feet. I was a certified hippy-snowboarder.



I headed to BC and became a bit more refined. My JNCOs turned into bootleg jeans. I realized that clogs made my feet wicked hot and smelly so flip flops replaced them. The hemp necklace was retired (yet not forgotten… it is still in my jewelry box.) But I still rocked the sweet retro graphic tees. However they were often covered by a North Face style (I wish it was a real North Face… one day I will break down and buy one) black fleece.



Now that I have an office job, I wear pencil skirts every day to work with a cardigan and flats. On the weekends I wear skinny jeans, blouses and my loveable Rainbows (hemp Rainbows… old habits die hard.)



Change is inevitable. There was a Christian song that played in the 90’s that said: “I believe in evolution. I believe in state of change.” This song had nothing to do with Darwinism, but it had everything thing to do with spiritual change and growth.



Like my wardrobe, my spirit and walk with Christ has changed greatly since I was 17. Then, I didn’t see myself as the Christian College type. I saw myself as a loner, who believed in a mighty God, but a God who had better things to do than look after me.



At 17 I believed this because on September 11, 2001 I walked into my senior English class and saw Mrs. Law crying at her desk. Feeling awkward we all quietly sat down at our desks. Minutes later an IT staff member brought a TV into our classroom and flicked on a random channel, because every channel was showing the same thing. At that moment I took off my rose tinted glasses and I began to see the world as hurt, broken, sick, and so full of hate. God was big, but was he big enough to have time to worry about me?



I stopped having spiritual goals; I stopped praying, reading and studying. They say coffee will stunt your growth. I was drinking some kind of metaphorical coffee and my spiritual growth was being stunted terribly.



Thankfully, I was a broken girl who was granted God’s grace when He opened the path to BC. Because of what I learned here, every day I grow in Christ. Some days I am the queen of walking with my Lord and other days I fail Him miserably. But I am always learning. Basic and groundbreaking principles were placed in my life by BC faculty, staff and students. Bluefield was my place of evolution. I am forever changed because of it.