Best Advice for a College Freshman
When August rolls around each year, I often see social media posts asking for the best advice to give a college freshman.This year, I didn’t need the prompt.
My youngest child, Kerrigan, moved into her dorm at Clemson University on September 11, three weeks after she began classes online. Hidden among the items packed inside her car and sealed in an envelope was a four-page letter from me.
I got a text from her at 10:43 pm on her first night in the dorm. “Thank you for the letter. It was super touching and amazing as always. ”There was a heart emoji at the end. It filled my heart to overflowing. In the letter, I shared specifics about how I pray for her, including this:
“I pray God will help you find a career path that will bring you fulfillment and joy, the kind of career that will make you get up every day and be excited about going to work. As I’ve told you before, if that turns out to be digging ditches, then great. There is no shame in honest work of any kind. In fact, there is honor and dignity.”
In October 1967, less than six months before he was assassinated, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia.
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures … like Beethoven composed music … like Shakespeare wrote poetry,” King said that day. “Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”
I assured Kerrigan that she would never see me treat a person deemed “non-essential” by the world any differently than I treat those deemed VIPs. I shared King’s quote about the street sweeper in her letter. Then, I offered what I consider my best advice to a college freshman, including my own, and to anyone of any age.
“Value every person who crosses your path and treat them as valued,” I wrote. Jesus calls us to nothing less and, most certainly, to value ourselves as well. We live in a world quick to devalue. We see it all around us, from the cesspool that is Twitter to the nightly news – people quick to tear others down, to point out flaws, to belittle and berate, to shatter the Golden Rule. And God created the ones being devalued, made them one-of-a-kind. They are beloved by God, cherished by God.
But if they’ve listened to the voices around them, they aren’t likely to feel that way and, though we might not be able to tell by looking at them, they might be crumbling inside.
Author Sarah Thebarge writes of a time she spoke at a youth ministry conference in Houston. At the close of the talk, she looked at the students and said: “I promise you that at some point in your life, something will happen that is difficult and painful. Something that you don’t understand, that you don’t want, that you don’t like. And in that moment, you’re going to think that God doesn’t love you, that He’s abandoned you and forgotten all about you. “And some of you are there right now – you’ve lost someone you loved, or a relationship ended badly, or you’re getting bullied mercilessly.
And maybe it seems so bad that the best way out is to end your life. “But you are here tonight just to hear me tell you this: God. Loves. You. “He sees you, He cares about you, and even when you don’t feel Him near you, He’s holding onto you every step of the way. And He’s going to work this all out for good.”
After the talk ended, Thebarge went to the lobby to sign copies of her book, The Invisible Girls. Around 20 minutes passed and the line emptied, as youth hurried along to their next session.
“And then an overweight teenage boy with thick glasses came up to the table clutching a copy of my book to his chest,” she later wrote. “He handed it to me to sign, which I did, and then I gave it back to him. Instead of walking away, he stood there in front of me without saying anything, and tears welled up in his eyes. “Finally, he broke the silence. ‘Would it be okay if you hugged me?’ he asked. I walked around the table and held my arms out. He wrapped his arms around my waist and clung to me. “‘God sees you, God loves you, God cares about you,’ I whispered. And I could feel his shoulders shaking as he cried.” I can’t read that story without shedding a few tears myself.
When we don’t just go to church but instead we choose to be the church by serving others, sometimes in ways that might seem insignificant to us, we’re reminding those we encounter and even those we will never meet on the receiving end of our service – God sees you, God loves you, God cares about you.
My best advice to a college freshman, to my college freshman, and to anyone of any age.
“Value every person who crosses your path and treat them as valued.”
God sees them. God loves them. God cares about them.
We should be sure to do the same, always. ~ Forrest
