r.a. in review

This year as an R.A., perhaps the biggest lessons I have learned are about myself. I’ve heard the exhortation “Know yourself” for years, understood that it is probably important, but have never really known where to start. After our tragedy this summer, I knew I couldn’t just live in the status quo of my low self-awareness and self-love. Many people reminded me over the summer that I didn’t have to take the position, that it might be good to take the year easy. But I wanted to be an R.A., despite feeling emotionally and mentally unprepared, because I didn’t want to walk this journey alone. I wanted a team, and I wanted a dorm – both places I wanted to turn into places of safety. The R.A.D., the dorm, and Kelly have been God’s biggest ways of loving me this year.

This R.A.D. team has been central to encouraging me to keep going, and keep being honest, even as I have chosen to dive into myself, mostly by their example. It started honestly when I showed up for SLO-Week in tears, heart-breaking saying goodbye to my mom, and knowing that they all saw those tears. Then each of their levels of honesty, each testimony, each meltdown, each tear that I witnessed was reminder after reminder that feeling is beautiful, and people are beautiful when they are real in their suffering. What they may have seen as their weaknesses, I saw as their strengths. I have felt so safe with them, treasuring our times together in a cabin at Qwanoes, in Kelly’s apartment, on ferries, hiking to lighthouses, around bonfires, singing the doxology. The only way I could grow to know myself more this year was to be surrounded by people who made me feel safe; I’m so grateful to this team for being those people.

My dorm has been another place of safety. They made me feel safe by making me feel wanted but not needed. I felt safe to go be alone, go dig into the depths of my soul, knowing that if I wasn’t ready to be an “R.A.” again for a few days, they would be okay. They would support each other. And they would be happy to see me when I came back. They prayed for me, challenged me to vulnerability through their own example, and loved me through every love language. In this year of stripping away a lot of outer layers, I was left without the creative power or emotional capacity to do new or uncomfortable things. But they willingly followed me through dorm meetings that were different than perhaps what they had expected - meeting Jesus more often than meeting boys, studying the Bible more than playing games. They joined me in my place of comfort, and made our whole dorm a haven of safety.

And Kelly has been a lighthouse in the storm, a stream in the desert, a voice calling out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord.” She has shown me the beauty of a heart that feels deeply. She has given me courage to take the lids off my suppressed emotions. She has called out the Shelby that I am underneath the perfectionism, self-doubt, and self-protective walls. She has filled my jar with marbles. She has assured me through her actions that even as I fight to know God and know myself and everything feels like a shaking fog, I am not forgotten. She has been with me, and in that been like Christ. She has become a sister. 

The team and dorm given to me this year have given me the safety and love that I so badly needed to begin facing the depths of my own soul. Because of you, I know myself more, and because of you, I know God more. I am so grateful.