Back to the Future

  • By Trish Berg
  • May 18, 2011
  • 289
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. I have gone back to the future. No I have not invented a time machine. I have become a college student once again, and have even moved into a dorm for two weeks on campus. It is such an odd place to be at forty-two, the same position I was many years ago at eighteen. Though I am not the same person I once was then. I remember the night before I left for college like it was yesterday, even though it was over two decades ago. I was all packed and ready to leave for Pennsylvania on the outside, and was all butterflies and sadness on the inside. When supper was over that night, I walked out to our screened-in front porch and sat there and cried for hours. I just could not imagine leaving home for college, most of all leaving the people in the world who love me the most. But when morning came, I hopped in my parents’ car and went off to college. I had a sick feeling in my stomach during the entire drive, and even thinking about it brings me right back to that place. I have felt that same butterfly-belly at other times in my life as well, and each time I force myself to keep walking forward even when everything inside of me tells me to run for the covers and hide. But I walk by faith and somehow, God provides what I need to make it through the journey He has placed in front of me. Well, I am once again at a butterfly-belly moment in my life. I have embarked on graduate school, working towards a doctorate degree in business. Now, before you think me crazy (and who knows, maybe I am), I have also begun teaching college full-time, and part of the job qualification is to have a terminal degree. (Terminal degree, now there’s a term I struggle with. It’s like I now have “cancer of the education” or something.) And here is where it gets interesting. Anderson University, where I am studying, requires three campus visits per year for what they call “intensive coursework.” So last week, I moved into a dorm apartment with three other ladies in the program for our first week long intensive, and I felt like that eighteen year old girl heading off to college for the first time. I guess it all goes full circle. I will tell you that I may not be the same person I was two decades ago, you need only look at my wrinkles and gray roots to understand that. Yet, even at forty-two, I still feel the same insecurities as I did at eighteen. I still cried when I left the people who love me the most in the world and had a sick feeling in my stomach the whole drive to campus. But when morning came, once again, just like before, I hopped in my car and went off to college. I fought against the butterfly-belly-feelings and walked forward even when everything inside of me was telling me to run for the covers and hide. And like always, I am walking by faith, trusting God to provide what I need to make it through the journey He has placed in front of me. Here we go again. Catch up with Trish at www.TrishBerg.com


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