sigh

Oh college, filled with....unique and interesting people. As much as I love being in college I can't wait to 1. not live in a dorm and 2. not have to be waken up every night at 3 am by loud drunk people. I have yet to sleep 3 straight hours this week for various reasons. Last night was a rude reminder of many things. For one it reminded me why I don't drink and why I'm not interested in it. It also reminded me of, even though I don't miss living at home I do miss having my own room with no one else around to wake me up. Most of all it reminded me of how much I love the church.
I'm going to try and explain last night as best as I can even though I'm not 100% on a few of the details. There's a girl on my floor who's a friend of my roommate, lets just say that this girl is exactly opposite of myself in morals and behavior. When she gets completely hammered she gets bipolar and will get really mad at people. Apparently last night she slugged a guy in the back for no real reason and was trying to fight with him. Her friend who's here for the weekend is usually able to control her but ever since she's been at college apparently (sorry I'm going to use apparently a lot when explaining this) her drinking habits have changed for the worse or something of that sort where the friend can't control her anymore. These two have been best friends since freshman year of high school and know everything about each other and are attached at the hip. Apparently the girl was exceptionally violent to the friend in a way that's inexcusable. My roommate and the girl's roommate were walking around, sober thank goodness, and found them. I'm not sure what exactly happened but something went on and the girl threw the friend's stuff out of her room. At this point I got woken up at 3:30 by the friend coming into my room crying followed by my roommate who was trying to help her. To make a long story short everyone was up in my room till about 5 trying to get the girl to figure out what she was doing was not right. Though in my opinion this seemed impossible since she was blacking out and probably won't remember anything. Apparently this particular situation was so bad that their friendship is really dicey right now. Well the friend slept in our room last night and none of us really know what the girl's reaction is going to be now that she's sober or for that matter if she's gonna remember any of this.
Reflection time. I wish with all my heart that she remembers last night and realizes what excessive drinking is tearing apart her friendships. First off even though I never really considered drinking and partying, I really don't now. I see what an excess does to relationships and to the person themselves. I'm just glad none of my close friends in stl were ever like this so I didn't/don't have to deal with this personally. At the moment I'm just a bystander and that's the most I ever want my involvement in situations like this to be. It reminds me even more of how I need to establish strong relationships with the girls in my bible study and the people at RUF because I need people that see the world as I do.
I find it ironic that for the first 18 years of my life I had biblical influences around me 24/7 and yet now with hardly any influence my faith is strongest. I guess being in the minority makes you realize certain things. First off when I had it around me all the time it just became routine and mundane and annoying. I was tired of a Christian school that forced us to go to chapel every wednesday. Now that I don't have the family and school around all the time I actually enjoy going to church. For most of my life I saw church services (not youth group)as a negative thing and just another thing I was required to do. But now I love those times when I'm at The Crossing or RUF and listening to sermons. For instance I woke up early this morning to go to The Crossing and it felt so good to get off of campus and away from the influence of the dorm for just an hour. I think that being outside the Christian bubble and seeing what everyone else is like has made me that much more thankful for Christianity and the fact that I know what true happiness is and where to put the center of my world. It's kind of that old addage of you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore. A parallel that I can make is kind of like dorm food. It just gets so old having the same pre cooked stuff every day that's from a menu. You want a home cooked meal so bad and when you eventually get one it's the best thing in the world. That's how I felt this morning when I went to church. I'm tired of getting woken up every morning by drunk people and dealing with them that when I stepped out of the dorm and spent that 1.5 hours at church this morning it was one of the best feelings I've had in a long time. I felt like I could breathe and chill out for a little while. They sung In Christ Alone and at the point I felt closer to God than I have in a while. Cause I'm always around people and don't have time or personal space to chill out. I know this is extremely cliche but lately God has truely become my refuge from all of this. I now know what that saying means and love it. I've always enjoyed bible studies/small groups in the past but about half the reason I went is to socialize with my friends. Now, even though I go to build up relationships with the other kids in the bible study, I primarily go because for some reason hearing people talk about the Bible makes me feel at home and gives me relief for a bit.
I don't know why I've been tying everything back to religion lately but it's strange. I guess I never relized how big of a deal it was, I never really understood how to make Chrisitanity your identity and not just another label, but now I know and I'm alright with being in the minority.