by Dechari Cole
5. How do you want to finish strong this year?
Chapter 19
New Girl on Campus
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Even though I had graduated, not all of my high school traditions came to an end. There was still a Youth Tour that summer before college . . . and it had the potential to be the best one yet. My younger sister, Brittany, was finally old enough to come with us this year. Carol Ann was there, of course, and Kristy, as well as some other great friends from church. Carol Ann’s boyfriend, Chad, came on tour again, but thankfully Seth did not.
We were going to do a production called The Army of God, and I was surprised when I was asked to play the main part. I felt kind of inadequate, but honored at the same time. I would give it my best and try to play the part from my heart. As I learned the role, I saw that it really wasn’t so far off from my actual life. It was about a teenage girl in search of really knowing God. As she learns about His love and begins to share Him with her lost friends, she comes to see that she’s on a battlefield as a warrior for Christ.
I guess I was hoping that God would somehow use me in big ways in this role, despite the fact that I didn’t feel very talented. It just meant I had to lean on God that much more to play the part like I should. By the end of the tour, though, I wasn’t really acting. At one point in the program, I was supposed to pray for my friends’ protection against Satan’s lies—and I was truly praying out loud for my friends. It was awesome!
Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil.
—Ephesians 6:11
You see, we weren’t just acting out how Satan tries to tempt us, destroy us, and ultimately keep us from God—we were living it on this tour. There were arguments, people getting hurt, troubles with our van, and more. We were doing something to stand up for God and spread the good news of Jesus, which meant we were declaring battle against Satan—and Satan was fighting back. He wanted God’s army divided and feeling defeated, but we were learning to be on guard for the attacks. Instead of running off, getting upset, or fighting with each other, our leaders taught us to fight Satan on our knees in prayer. We were in a spiritual battle, and we needed to put on our armor (Ephesians 6:10–20) and be ready to fight!
Though the tour had been a battlefield, it was still terrific because God taught me to lean on Him for the victory. That’s what I needed to know before I took this next step into college. College would be its own battlefield of living for God versus letting Satan have a heyday with my life. There is so much freedom in college—to enjoy, to experiment with, or to abuse. It’s a time when faith can either grow stronger or be abandoned all together.
When college time came, it brought lots of changes, though a few things stayed the same. I decided to live at home, since campus was only a few miles away. (And I would have home-cooked meals and someone to do my laundry!) The downside of living off campus was that I had to worry about parking, which was outrageously expensive and practically nonexistent. Parking passes started at $500. That wasn’t even an option for my piggy bank. Option “B” was the handful of free parking spots on the edge of campus. If you were brave enough and had the patience, you could swarm around them with all the other vultures ready to swoop in for a spot. Luckily for me, though, I had an option “C”—Jason. Jason’s family got a rental house over the summer, right across the street from campus. He offered to let me park there and then walk to class from his house. I definitely took him up on it! We started timing our walks in the mornings so that we could walk together. Then, depending on our schedules, we would sometimes catch up in the afternoons. It was so much more fun walking with a friend, especially on a big, new campus.
I was still working at Walmart, but I had moved from just cashiering to also greeting. Actually, I volunteered for the job. No one else seemed to like greeting people and giving out smiley face stickers, but I did. So I was nineteen and greeting people at Walmart when, one day, this lady walks up to me, talking a million miles an hour. She and her husband had seen me working and wanted to hire me to work at their car dealership. I didn’t think much about it at first. All I knew was that this lady was interrupting my smiley face duties! Once I let it sink in, though, I thought, What’s the harm in checking it out?
It was my first actual job interview—before I’d just turned in applications. Well, they offered me the job and more money. They seemed really nice, so I accepted. I was a part-time receptionist/cashier/filing clerk/customer service representative. It was the most responsibility I’d had so far. With a little patience and some needed critiques, I turned into their 5-Star Customer Service Manager. It ended up being the best job I probably ever had, mainly because of the great Christian couple I worked for, Mike and Mary.
As I’d expected, college did offer a lot of freedom—and lots of decisions to make. Which class? Which club? Which activity? There were so many cool activities to choose from. On the other hand, there were also a lot of not-so-cool activities—like drinking. It didn’t matter if students were of legal age or not, drinking seemed to be “the thing” to try. People didn’t even stop to think if they should drink; they just did it because they could. Sounds like that same lie Satan fed Eve: “Look! God’s keeping something good from you.” Sure, it was made out to be fun, but all you had to do was look at the consequences to see that it was just the opposite. Drinking led to numbing your senses, making poor decisions, ignoring your problems, keeping you from real relationships, and endangering lives. It created dependency, addiction, and sometimes anger and violence. My sweet boss, Mary, broke into tears in the office one day as she told me how alcohol was completely destroying her son’s life. Anything there is a rehabilitation center for should be your first clue that it’s probably not something good for your life.
I was so thankful that I didn’t go down that road. I credit God and my good friends who kept me accountable—and also, I knew how much fun I could have without alcohol. And fun I had! One of the best things Carol Ann, Jason, and I did was try out some dance classes. These weren’t the swaying back and forth to slow songs and grinding to fast ones (yuck). Nope, these required actual moves and skills. I was totally hooked! Everyone’s favorite was the Swing Dance Club. You know—the oldies type dancing you may have seen in movies. Come to find out Jason had some pretty great rhythm! Better than me for sure. So I finally got my dance with Jason as he ended up being my dance partner. And we tried all the crazy moves—flips, aerials, and all kinds of fancy tricks. Swing dancing became a weekly routine for a bunch of us. It was great exercise, very social, and a ton of fun.
Yes, college was different, but I had a feeling I was going to like it. Then, one day, as I was walking across campus, I spotted Jason in the distance, heading off to class. I paused and smiled with a bit of a question mark on my face. Did Jason look different somehow? Huh, I guess he actually looked like a college guy. Definitely different than that geeky little love-struck boy I had met my freshman year of high school. We were all growing up, I guess. For some reason it left me with a happy thought. I sure wasn’t the same girl I was that freshman year of high school. I wasn’t sure who I was just yet, but one thing was certain . . . I was the new girl on campus.
What I Learned
Since God says that most people are on a path to destruction—why follow them there? Don’t be afraid to show them there’s another way!
Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it. (Matthew 7:13–14)
Girl Talk
1. I heard a pastor once say, “Does your life require a gospel explanation?” What he meant was, do you live in such a way that people wonder why you’re different and the only answer is Jesus?
2. Read Ephesians 6:10–20. What stands out to you when you read abou
t the armor of God? Try praying this over yourself first thing in the morning. Ask a parent or friend to pray it with you.
3. Would you handle things differently and with greater wisdom if you were more aware of the spiritual battle? For example, if someone is being cruel to you, take a step back. Could he or she be hurting and taking it out on you? Might Satan be attacking the relationship? Does the person even know God? Now—how will you start fighting your battles?
4. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Read Ecclesiastes 10:1–3. How can you tell if you’re the fool? How can you keep your heart going in the right direction?
Chapter 20
Freshman on Fire
Before you enter the dragon’s lair, be sure to put your armor on.
Well, all the extracurricular activities were fun, but now it was time to hit the books. My classes were pretty much the basics everyone was required to take . . . math, biology, history, English. So here we go with the 101s. Everyone has their strong and weak subjects. Math and English, I did pretty well in, but biology kicked my booty. I worked my tail off with a study group and got a “C”—for which I was very thankful! Then there was history, which typically I found very boring. But this history class was going to be anything but boring.
History 101, Day One: Carol Ann, another friend named Allison, and I had planned our schedule to share this class. As class started, we, of course, sat next to each other. The teacher—we’ll call her Ms. Walls—started off class with a series of questions to the class.
“Who in here believes that God created the heavens and the earth?”
I was a bit surprised by the question. High school had abided by the notion of “separation of church and state,” so religion was never talked about in class. Maybe college was different, I thought. So I, along with my two friends, raised our hands.
“Who believes in the virgin birth?”
“Who believes Jesus is the Son of God?”
We kept raising our hands and started nodding our heads like “Yeah . . . we believe in all that.” Ms. Walls continued with other questions on biblical foundations. Hey, now this was my kind of history class! Then, just as I was getting really excited, Ms. Walls’ face quickly transformed from kind and questioning to glaring and condemning. It was a trap! She went on to say what kind of stupid, awful people we were if we believed in those things. I couldn’t even comprehend all the specifics of what she was saying. All I could think as she yelled at us was, “Is this really happening?”
After class was over, the three of us picked our jaws up off the floor and walked out of the room in shock. Ms. Walls wasn’t out to encourage the Christians in class; she was out to target us! And this was just History 101! How did I get in so deep? From day one, we knew that we each had a bull’s-eye on our forehead.
I’d had people not accept my faith before or not want to hear about Jesus, but I’d never had anyone actually attack it like that. Especially a public attack from an adult with such vengeance. It was quite scary and surreal. I had known that college could test my faith, but I hadn’t known what that would really look like. Now I knew. I told my mom what happened. Her response was, “Well, it sounds like the three of you are going through the fire . . . just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did.”
I think my mom may be a genius. I could totally relate to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! They were young men, away from home in a new land. They had been forced to serve the king, and God gave them favor in his sight. The king, though, believed in other false gods and not the true God. (Yep, got that—a new place with people who didn’t believe in God. Check.) One day, the king had a statue of himself made and ordered everyone to either bow down to it or be thrown into a fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused. Well, the king was furious, but he gave them one more chance because he liked them. Maybe he thought, Okay, you’re new at this, but this is how we do things around here. (Pressure to follow the crowd. Check.) But this was their response:
If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up. —Daniel 3:17–18
Well, into the furnace they went. It was so hot that even the guards putting them in died. Then a miracle happened. The king was astonished to see not three men in the furnace, but four! And they were all walking around unharmed. When the king let them out, they didn’t even smell like smoke. God had protected them in that fire, and they came out unharmed. The king then knew that their God was real. There’s no doubt in my mind that God put those three guys in that situation so that He could be made known to the king and the people. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went through the fire, and God came out shining.
Don’t you think that God had Carol Ann, Allison, and me in that class to show His love and light to Ms. Walls? Maybe even the whole class? While she didn’t have an actual fire to throw us in—though if it were legal she might have—Ms. Walls was out to test our faith. We could have run away by asking for another class, but there was something about the three of us together that made it easier to stand strong. And it wasn’t just the three of us, anyway. There was a fourth. God was right there with us, and He would see us through.
I think of Jesus and how He was made fun of, yelled at, and then ultimately tortured and killed in the most brutal and embarrassing way. He didn’t go through all that for His benefit. No, He did it purely for yours and mine! He could have stepped away at any time and said this isn’t worth it, but He didn’t. He knew you and I were totally worth it. Jesus said, “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:33). Jesus stood strong to save me, and there’s no way I could deny Him.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
—Matthew 5:44
Jesus also told us how to get through the name-calling and attacks, and how to treat our enemies. He said to love them and pray for them (Matthew 5:44–47)! Not our normal reaction, I know. Jesus said it’s easy to love people who like you and treat you well, but God’s love is loving even those who do you wrong. Think about it: if someone treats you wrong and you repay them with kindness, what a statement for God that makes! People will question why you’re different.
I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s actually going against your very nature. You want to fight back, to repay hateful words with more hateful words. Don’t let others defeat you. Their cruelty isn’t really about what they have against you; it’s about what they lack inside. If they lack Jesus in their life, how can we expect them to be like Him? I don’t know what made Ms. Walls hate Christians so much. Perhaps someone in her past hurt her. Whatever it was, I knew she didn’t know the God I knew—the One whose love is so amazing it can’t help but spill out to others. So maybe we could show her His love.
That we did. We prayed for her salvation while killing her with kindness. As time went by, her hardened heart toward Christians seemed to be cracking. Her condemning demeanor softened. We actually began having conversations outside of just schoolwork. I think she was surprised to see us go out of our way to say hello and ask her how her day was. We never saw Ms. Walls come to know Jesus as her Savior, but we left the class unharmed by the fire she put us through, and I think Jesus’ love was shown because of it.
What I Learned
You’ll never walk through the fire alone as long as you know the One True God.
You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials so that the genuineness of your faith—more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:6–7)
Girl Talk
1. Your faith is going to be tested. Are you willing to go through the
fire if it means God will come out shining more brightly? Or will you hide your faith to avoid being persecuted? What are you so afraid of?
2. Sometimes people who don’t know God only want to see you fall. They want to see that your faith is not real so that they can justify not following God. For example, have you seen people go after those who publicly say they’re waiting until marriage to have sex? My pastor says, “When others are doing wrong, I will stand strong.” How can we help each other stand strong?
3. God has put you where you are to show Jesus to those around you. So where are you right now? Make a list of those you need to pray for and “kill with kindness.” Share your list with your friends and pray for those on their lists too.
4. It’s easy to hang out with and love on people who are like us. But Jesus hung out with the unpopular, and He loved the unlovable. He even told us to pray for our enemies. Why?
5. There will be times when you’ll have to enter some dangerous territory. How can you best be prepared to fight the enemy who’s ready to tear you to shreds?
Chapter 21
A Different Kind of Girl
Mirror, mirror, when you look at me . . . what kind of girl do you see?
Now the business owners I worked for, Mike and Mary, had a son named Brandon, who hung out at the dealership a lot in the afternoons. He was at least one to two years older than me. He was tall with blond hair, a deep voice, and was pretty well-built, I guess you could say. Believe it or not, though, I was actually not boy crazy at this moment in time. I had cooled things down from high school, and my focus was on doing well at my new job. However, Brandon caught me a couple of times when I was leaving work and asked if I’d like to go out sometime. Each time I said thank you, but no. I didn’t really know him, plus he was my bosses’ son. That just seemed too weird.
