It’s been a month.

It’s been a month since I hugged my parents goodbye on a doorstep of a dorm called Stroup on a beautiful campus called Gardner-Webb University, in a little town no one has ever heard of called Boiling Springs.

It’s been almost a month since I laid down in a tiny little twin bed in an unfamiliar room and read letters from home and cried because I couldn’t believe I was finally at college, far, far away from everyone and everything I loved and knew.

It’s been a month that I’ve been in college. And I already feel like I’ve learned so much.

I also feel like I’ve been putting off writing any sort of blog post about this whole experience. I feel like I’ve been drinking from a fire hose. Everything around me is so different. I’m meeting people who are completely different from me, from worlds nothing like any that I have ever experienced.

But in this time of learning so much, I find I must do what I do best. Write.

I knew I would learn lessons in college. Lessons about math, science, social sciences, history, and of course, writing. And I knew deep down that I’d learn lessons about people, and myself. But now that I am reflecting on this past month I see that the lessons I learned were not the ones I necessarily expected to learn. Isn’t that the beauty of learning? We are assailed by a truth we never expected to stumble upon. So, for those of you who might be wondering what I’ve been doing the past month as a college freshman, and for those of you who were just kind enough to click the link and read, here are the five biggest lessons I’ve learned at college that have nothing to do with academia.

1.) Life is a balancing act.

When I left for school, this was the thing I remember my father saying most clearly. And it took be about 4.6 seconds into the semester to realize how true this statement was.

I thought making the choice of what school to attend was difficult. Ha. No one mentioned that every day after I chose was going to fraught with even more choices. How to spend my time… Who to spend my time with… What to prioritize… Suddenly I wasn’t making one choice. I was making hundreds. I’m learning to balance social life and personal life. Spiritual life and academic life. Family and friends. New relationships and old relationships. Homework, sleep, and socializing.

Life is constantly shifting and changing. There is always something vying for our attention. And in the midst of the noise of life, I must make choices. And I must learn to balance. How thankful I am for a God who promises us an anchor of hope for our souls, even in the most unbalanced times.

 “So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.” (Heb. 6:19, NLT)

2.) Not everyone is going to like you.

Take this lesson from the girl who has eaten many a wrong order a restaurant, and spent a lot of time doing all the work in group projects, all in the hopes that she wouldn’t cause anyone to “dislike” her. I have spent so much of my life striving endlessly for people to “like” me. What does that even mean? Why did I want people to like me? Did I want people to like me for me, or because I wanted social validation? Did I want people to like me so I could represent Christ well, or because I wanted to feel good about myself?

I went into college determined that everyone needed to “like” me. I learned very quickly that this isn’t really a viable way to walk through life. Christ calls us to live at peace with everyone, but I have yet to find a verse in the Bible that says, “Make sure everyone thinks you’re a cool person.” Christ called us to love everyone well. He called us to live a life so devoted to Him that people see Him and only Him. He called us to live a life that makes us say, “anything good in me is Christ.” When I get caught up wanting people to “like” me, I am essentially taking Christ off His throne in my life, and I placing Hannah Ray right on it. I am saying it is more important for me to feel good about myself than to present the Gospel.

There will be people we click with, and people we don’t click with. It isn’t our job to cling to those we click with, or to force those we don’t click with us to like us. It’s our job to love everyone the way Jesus does, and it’s our job to point everything in our life back to Him.

“Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” (1 Thes. 4:9-12, NLT)

3.) Find your place… Literally.

I was terrified of college because of one thing. Introversion. I am so introverted that I was completely sure that college was going to be one long party that exhausted me after two hours and I’d be trapped in this ongoing world of loud, boisterous people I couldn’t escape from. And for the first week, it sort of was. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. I had so much fun learning new people and experiencing new things. But there came a time, (that I knew would come) when I desperately needed a breather. I needed a moment to process. I needed a moment to write. I needed a moment alone. And I found it. I found it in a secret hiding place on campus that makes me breathe a little more easily. Whether I need to take a mental health break, or really knock out some of my Old Testament reading in a quiet environment, I can do it.

While it exciting to meet new people, and to begin to strengthen your relationships, it’s also so important to understand, you can’t do it all. You can sign up for a few things, but not everything. You can go out some nights, but not every night. Understanding where your passions are, and where your priorities are, help you better understand your place. Find a quiet place to be yourself. Even if it means saying “no” sometimes.

“Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.” (Psalm 46:10, NLT)

4.) Everyone is a complex story.

And stories take time to read. I have met some of the most amazing people in these first few weeks. College seems like a catalyst for life. It compounds life into this one location, and suddenly three weeks can feel like three months, because you are living life with people in a deeper way than you’ve lived with anyone prior to this experience. Suddenly, school, family, friends, church, and sports life are one. You see people’s good sides, bad sides, and ugly sides very quickly. They see yours. In a few days, you can have a repertoire of experiences that would have taken you months to accumulate in the “real world.”

But just because you feel close doesn’t mean you are. As one of my friends here so eloquently put, “College friendships spring up like a new plant, quick and promising, but that doesn’t mean the roots are deep yet.” I’ve planted some amazing seeds. But now it’s time to focus on deepening the roots of these seeds.

Everyone I meet is their own story. They have chapters of their lives I know nothing about. They have characters who changed them, and rewrote their stories. They have tear stained pages, and joy filled passages. They have an entire history that I don’t know, and they deserve the respect of telling their stories at the speed they choose. When reading other’s stories, I have to remind myself to have patience and love. I learn about people, and they learn about me, not through fast paced page skimming. We learn through taking our time together. We learn through communication. We learn through sharing meals, sharing a bathroom, sharing a classroom, and sharing our hearts. Be patient with others, and understand that love takes time.

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” (Ephesians 4:2, NLT)

5.) Choose Joy

First of all, I must say I have the best roommate ever, and from the moment I met her she has reiterated this phrase to me. At first, it was a cute thing to say and write on our whiteboard on the door. Now, I feel like the truth is taking root in my heart. Every morning, rainy or sunny, Monday or Saturday, tired or awake, good hair day or bad, we are given a choice. We are given the choice to see Jesus in the little things in life, in the people we meet, and the opportunities we get, or we have the choice to focus on ourselves. I have to admit, too often I focus on myself. College is quite an easy place to become very inwardly focused. I have worried over relationships, friendships, classes, schedules, grades, cafeteria food… You name it, I’ve worried about it. And although I would terribly disappoint my mother by admitting this, I haven’t kept a “good attitude” at every turn. I don’t “choose” joy because sometimes I see nothing to be joyful about.

Yet when I don’t see the joy, it is because I am focusing on the things right in front of me. Like a horse with blinders on, I see only my problems, and I fall apart. But it’s so clear in God’s Word that every moment is an opportunity for joy. Why? Not because we are happy or excited about the bad things in life, but because each situation, both good and bad, is an opportunity to grow closer to Christ. It’s an opportunity to run to God’s feet and throw our troubles down, knowing we can’t find happiness on our own. It’s an opportunity for joy, because we choose to praise Jesus over any other circumstance in our life.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:2-4, NLT)

So there they are. Five lessons from college that I have learned.  College is a place to learn, grow, and understand yourself and your place in the world more clearly. Hopefully I will have many more lessons from the next four years to share. And God willing, these lessons will take root in my heart. And I hope in some way, whether you’ve never been to college, you’re currently in college, or you’re long past college, something in these lessons has helped you. I encourage you, balance life, find your place, pursue stories, and most of all choose joy.

Everything is temporary.

In the year that I have had my phone (and the years I had an old school iPod touch before that) I have never deleted a conversation on my phone. Never once. You can scroll back to October 10^th, 2013 when I got the phone and read the first text messages I sent saying, “I got a new phone!” if you want. It’s all there. (Granted it may take a lot of scrolling, but it’s there.)

I could work for the FBI the way I track things. I can refer back to something someone said eight months ago if it means proving my point or remembering something especially poignant. My iMessage app is a messy conglomeration of names and emoticons and messages spanning the last 11 months.

Why? Because words and memories mean so much to me. Every text conversation I have ever had is like a tiny little time capsule shared with someone. Nowadays, my generation is reprimanded for their excessive use of screen to screen conversation instead of face to face. I am the first to advocate the importance of face to face interaction, uninterrupted by screens. Too often, we hide behind screens. But there is something special about texting to me. Go ahead and laugh, yes I am about to romanticize text messaging.

Some of my favorite, deepest, and realest conversations have come through text messages. Because I am so word driven, I have been able to type out things that I never would have been able to articulate quite the same in person. Some of the most encouraging words, deepest thoughts, and most vulnerable moments have been born inside a little green messaging app on my iPhone.

So I save them. I save all those little texts, just in case. Just in case I ever want reread something funny one of my friends has said in our never ending group messages. Just in case I want to reread some little encouragement my best friend has sent me. Just in case I want to reread the words of someone I miss. Just in case…

So as you can imagine, when my phone recently went haywire and deleted every message and conversation, my heart sank when I opened up the app to see a white blank screen. Every name, every conversation, gone, as if they had never happened at all.

And for a moment, I panicked. I felt sick at the thought of never seeing all the words I had been collecting for almost a year. I felt sick never scrolling through the memories of my senior year, encapsulated in text messages. And then I begin to think about all the words I had said. All the deep thoughts, worried fears, helpful hints, kind words, shared secrets, and countless laughs that were all hidden away in my phone. Was I ever really going to go back and reread every word? And even if I did, then what? Was I going to copy down every single response and reply that had gone on in conversation for the past 365 days. Was I really ever going to do anything with all those words? Or did I just feel more secure holding a memory in a tangible way?

And that’s when I begin to wonder… Where exactly was I putting my relationships? Did I really believe that somehow being able to reread a message made it more real? Did I feel like having a tangible account of it made it more important? Was I really only secure in a relationship when the person sent me a little sound bite of a conversation? Did the loss of a text message really change the state of a relationship? Weren’t the people in my life more than the little blue bubbles I had reduced them to?

Was I focusing on the words on the screen… or the person on the other side of the screen?

Then it hit me. If not today, when? When am I ever going to let go of the moments and conversations I so desperately cling to, and focus on people again? That deep back and forth my friend and I had? I should have savored that conversation in the moment. That funny, witty exchange we had in a group message? I should have taken a picture if I really wanted to remember. And even then, what if I lost those accounts? What if my computer broke? What if my hard drive failed to back up? What if my house burned down?

Suddenly, I was reminded of a very simple truth that I often overlook.

Everything is temporary. No iCloud backup or hard drive storage or safe or bank or insurance policy can tether us to the things we so desperately cling to. Our lives are as fragile as year’s worth of text messages. Here one day, deleted the next.

Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matt. 6:19-20)

Don’t store up your treasure on iPhones, where short circuiting and technical glitches can destroy them. Instead, store up your treasures in Heaven.

As a writer, it’s easy to get caught up in the fear of computer crashes and paper fires. Anything, (literally anything) can destroy the work I’ve done. But nothing can destroy the impact I make on eternity. When I remember that it’s not the text messages I save, but the real people I invest in that live forever, I am comforted. When I look at a text message containing an inside joke compared to the light of eternity spent with Jesus, I can’t help but feel foolish.

Because Jesus also made it very clear, whatever we are clinging to, whatever makes or breaks our day is where our heart is. “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Matt. 6:21) Do I really want my heart invested in a few text messages from months ago? Or do I want my love and heart invested in the real people in my life every day?

Even as I write this, my iPhone is backing up to my computer, and I’m saying silent prayers that when I restore it everything will be back as it should be. But if it never restores, if my messages are lost forever, I will go on.

And best of all, I’ll go on a little differently. I really will put my phone down, and look around for the people in life who need a face to face interaction. I’ll invest in the right now, not in the yesterday. I’ll love my relationships for what they are, not what they appear to be over a text message.

And when I look at it that way, in the light of eternity, I have to be thankful for this little inconvenience. Because maybe an iPhone glitch is just what I needed to focus a little less on the temporary and a little more on the eternal.