This week marks my one year anniversary as a CIU student. I remember driving onto the boulevard last January and telling my parents that it would be alright if we turned around and went back to Wisconsin. I was so worried over the pressures of new beginnings. This semester held a somewhat similar feeling as I drove down our foreign-flagged boulevard. I felt my stomach flip and my shoulders grow heavy. I had a successful but exhausting Christmas vacation home, and I was holding hope that returning to CIU would reignite some type of energy in my perspective. Unfortunately, a drive down the boulevard does not hold any mystical power to inspire optimistic dispositions. Just for the record, the acts of scanning my key card, unlocking my dorm room, and unpacking my suitcases also do not ignite mystical hope for the upcoming semester.
I could not shake myself out of this doom and gloom mindset, but I also could not trace its origins; I enjoy school, I love learning, and I appreciate all the beauty this campus fosters – both physically, academically and spiritually. So why was I so hesitant to take it all in? Why was I again so worried about an unknown future?
It took an ironically painful wake-up call to launch me into a realistic outlook. I was making up my loft bed after having unpacked and was trying to get down via the route from my mattress to desk to chair to floor. As I propelled myself off the 6 foot high loft bed I recognized something about my balance was terribly not right, I noticed that the chair was just a few inches further to the left than I had anticipated, and most urgently I recognized the hard wood floor approaching my frail outstretched appendages much too quickly. I crumpled to the ground in what my roommate described as a very graceful landing. Within hours, my ankle had swelled to the attractive size of a small fruit, and my once postured jaunt had morphed into a hunchback-like dragging motion. My obvious imparity brought around a flock of mothering peers; pressing me to “ice this” and “heat that,” “elevate your leg.” The women of my hall were offering me ankle braces and monitoring when I last took a hardy dose of Advil. My foot was fine, I merely twisted it, sprained a ligament or something, but the care and attention of the women on my hall reminded me what I love most about this campus. I see the heart of CIU in how well we nurture and respect community.
I feel honored to be a part of a community of people who and seek to glorify Christ in their actions; A community that seeks to holistically relate to one another through thick and thin circumstances.
I think that the nervous prejudice that followed me down the boulevard was a selfish emotion. A perspective based primarily in my perception that this campus was not going to fulfill or satisfy my needs. Although, both this year and last I quickly learned that places, and seasons, and objects are not that which communicate growth, they do not teach beauty or inspire Christ-likeness. It is rather the communities God orchestrates at places (or in seasons, or through objects) that most inspires my passion for growth.
Welcome Back to CIU friends, I hope that God reveals to you what blessings this Institution facilitates, and furthermore that you may invest in your God-orchestrated passions so as to better serve Him this semester.
Hopefully you won’t need to sprain any ankles in the process!
-Lael Primrose