Dear God,

Thank You.

That was probably not the response you were quite expecting but Thank You, God, for giving me $2 to my name during this time of my life.

Does it suck? Yes. Am I living off of Ramen and peanut butter? Yes. Do I barely have enough gas in my car to drive a block? Yes. Am I using the last dollars of my paycheck after rent is paid to buy a donut? Yes. Does working 32+ hours a week and being a full-time student suck? Yes.

Am I thankful? Yes.

I am and will be eternally grateful for this time in my life because it is teaching me that what you want does not come easy. All I do is go to class, eat, homework, eat, work, eat, sleep, and repeat. I barely have time for friends, family, or a boyfriend and yet I still feel like I don’t have enough time to eat lol. Once classes are paid for, books, rent, bills, groceries, and gas, the $2 left on my paycheck do not go too far. But you bet your bottom dollar I am going to spend one of those on a happy hour smoothies for $1 at the local coffee shop because sometimes you’ve gotta treat yoself.

Why does working your life away, crying over your BIO 250 notes and eating Ramen not suck? Because it is teaching us that all this struggle and suckiness right now, during this time, is Your way of showing us how great life is GOING to be.

You are putting us through these struggles and making us work our butts off so that when we graduate, when we put in 4 or 6 or 8 years of tears and note taking and test anxiety that we get that big job, we get that killer internship and You are going to look down on us and say

Trust in Me

So that is what I am going to do, trust in you even when I am crying in my bowl of Ramen and smudging my Chem notes that I can’t even read because my eyes are barely open from lack of sleep, I am trusting.

Your unsteady college student,

…

God has a plan and reason for every little thing that happens in our life. He puts us through these struggles and hardships NOW so that once we graduate once we pass that state test we do not forget to thank HIM for getting us to that point. He is letting us struggle and work our butts off during our college years so that way when our life is good and we are all driving jeeps, with plenty of money in our accounts for donuts, smoothies AND to take road trips we realize how thankful we are. By getting by in college with thousands of dollars in your account and never having to worry or struggle, when are you ever going to be thankful? Without struggle comes no strength.

So the next time you are scrounging around for a few extra cents for that jar of PB or you are trying to study at 1 a.m. for your test at 8 a.m. the next morning and you think this is it, life can’t get any worse, or you feel like you don’t even have time to eat, breathe or think cuz you are so overwhelmed remember these words and thank HIM,

“You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7