End of the Morgantown Era. For Now.

As my last semester here at WVU draws to a close, I can't help but to feel the lump in my throat and the heaviness of heart that come only with deep nostalgia. I have been able to avoid its extremes thus far, but tonight, walking back towards home in the dark, the warm mountain air around me, back bent with the steep hills of Morgantown, it hit me. This is it. Tomorrow I'll take my last final, this weekend I'll say farewell to some sweet international students, next week I'll graduate alongside some faithful and close friends, and then I'll head home to the plains of Pennsylvania before driving south to the mysterious land of Texas, my new home.

I remember my first week of living here in Morgantown; I didn't know a soul, my iPod was stolen in the rec center the second day, I longed for people who knew who I was--really knew. I called my mom from the hillside next to Woodburn Hall and bawled my eyes out, asking that she call Ohio Wesleyan to tell them I'd like to take them up on their scholarship offer--only a few days too late. Fortunately, they couldn't accept my plea, and I was stuck. While for a while, I braved the hills of Morgantown alone, I soon discovered that there were other people in my boat, and had my first encounters with souls who felt as downtrodden as I did. My friend Jenn and I cried together one night in frustration about our new lives against the bright backdrop of the old--it was the beginning of a friendship that lives on, the beginning of feeling some sort of warmth in a place that felt like cold metal and neverending rain.

Breakfasts alone gave way to lunch with a friend, then two. An unknown city became a little more familiar. A few of us went to the rec, we went to football games, we watched movies in the dorm and suffered through Biology. I frequented Sozo, a small cafe on High Street, I sat on the hill in front of Stalnaker and talked about ideas, I went on a retreat. My eyes were reopened to a God who loves me and will never forsake me. When spring came, there was something far sweeter than the lilac trees and the slow movement towards summer--with a heaping portion of undeserved Grace, I found that there were things in Morgantown to desire: the strangers who greet one another, coffee beans underfoot while singing praises in a tiny room packed with people, late-night chats with no curfew, learning to love how utterly different and at once the same we all are--even here, where desperation and loneliness had shaken me to my core months earlier.

Here in Morgantown, He has blessed me with friends who I can't imagine leaving, and has allowed me the great fortune of sharing life with people who truly love one another. As I sit here now, it is hard to imagine leaving our house, the Pooplex, and these people. This year has been the smell of coffee, pancake breakfasts, dancing in the kitchen, killing ants. It was playing drums on the porch and going for night runs around the stadium, brushing our teeth together while trying to talk, live music, cultural nights and Friday dinners. It's been nail-painting, food-cooking, trying our hands at greater love and trust and understanding, it's been learning how to pray and how not to worry, practicing transparency and allowing healing to take over all of the dark spaces in our hearts. This year has been praising the Lord in an elementary school on Sunday nights, writing essays on Saturday afternoons, learning to wake up early and to eat better. It's been a year of poetry and pizza, Spanish and sushi, flights and concerts and running to the beat of Jonsi. It's been a year of uncontrollable laughter and some shameless crying, of doubt and of Baptism and of being kept despite being human. Now, it's saying goodbye. Or 'see you later,' if you please.

I have already filled up seven journals in explaining what God has done during my time here. It suffices, I hope, to say that it has been a time of the most intense growth of my whole life, the greatest pain and also, by far, the most supreme joy. God has taken me places I never thought I would go, both on a map, in the depths of my soul and in the mystery and greatness of Himself and His Word. How sweet it is to be loved by a Father who has plans for our lives and who doesn't let us remain the same!