With school starting up again a number of the kids in youth group are off to college. It makes me remember the many changes that happen in college. You can make lifetime friends in college (I certainly did, much more so than in high school), but it’s also a time of tremendous change. While I was in college I broke up with my girlfriend of several years, my parents separated, my home church fell apart, I stepped away from a longtime ministry and subsequently became distanced from a good friend. I also learned how to live on my own for the first time, I got married, I made some tremendous friends, I discovered that I just might be able to make a living at this writing thing, and my faith took a giant leap (though I’m not sure I could describe in which direction–forward in progress, backwards away from fundamentalism, an increase in depth–I don’t know).

It’s a time in your life marked by incredible change. Some wonderful, but some painful.

I still remember during the first week of school when I was still a wide-eyed freshman, someone recognized that look in my eyes and said, “Just give it a couple of weeks. It’ll be OK.” Not that anything changed in a few weeks. If anything the changes just kept coming. But somehow I was a little better prepared for them.