Cedarville- Nine Years Later

I went antiquing today in Springfield at my favorite place. That meant driving by the exit on I-70 to Cedarville, Route 72. It’s a road I’ve got to know very well over the past nine years. It’s taken me to nursing home ministry, to Cameron’s house, to work when I taught, and many a Dunkin run.

Nine years. Has it really been nine years since I first came out here to Ohio? I’m sure many of you remember that tumultuous time, and many of you prayed for me through requests from my Nana, my Mom, and even me (though usually I was asking for prayer that someone would come out to Ohio and get me…). If you don’t know the story, I never chose to delete those blog posts so you can go back and look at my desperate ramblings. 

Thankfully it was really only that first year out there that truly tried my spirit, even though there were other blips along the way (namely my crusty old beloved apartment and a turbulent relationship I got into while living there), I actually went out early to school the next summer I missed it so dang much. Those were the best times, and I learned so much from quiet moments on campus, just me and the Lord. Once I found my own in the History & Government department and found kindred spirits in some of my professors, it felt finally like I belonged. 

Time has healed most wounds (though I must admit COVID ending my final semester there still hurts), and praise the Lord I’m able to look at it all in a different light. I stand so much stronger in every aspect of my life because of my time at Cedarville. It’s strange to see what friendships have remained and grown deeper roots, and which ones have ended (a few still sting), and how my time in a tiny Ohio town has shaped who I am today. 

Now, that’s not to say I haven’t had my difficulties with the school since then, I struggle with feeling inadequate because though I’ve had many interviews with the school over the years, I’ve never been hired to work there. That’s hard on a spirit when all you want is to give back to a ministry that changed your life but they don’t seem to want you. It’s something I’ve tried my best to come to terms with, but it’s still bitter. There have also been times they’ve let me down with how administration has reacted to things of various natures, or stances they’ve taken, but I also know we’re still all humans in a fallen world and so the college is not perfect. 

Despite the hurt, Alec and I still find much joy in randomly coming to campus for date nights and long walks. The town and university shaped so much of our story, and that makes things ever the more precious. It’s still so funny to think that our times at Cedarville overlapped, yet we never met each other!! (We both probably would’ve thought each other as losers based on our majors…).

Though it was sometimes a suffocating bubble and there was an ever persistent “war” between townies and the “college people,” I truly do miss living in the community. No matter what you did, it felt like you were a part of something greater. There are still some things I keep close from there, particularly some professors, and my doctor whom I love dearly (I could find a PCP much closer than Cedarville, but you can’t get much better than Marcia!). I hold tight to the fact that we’re both second generation students, and that maybe someday we’ll have kids and grandkids that might want to attend as well! It’s so fun to see a legacy. If my mom hadn’t randomly found Cedarville in a catalogue, trajectories of lives would be vastly different! 

Some verses that always comes to mind when I think of Cedarville and its professors are Philippians 1:3-6:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” ESV

When I first started cross-stitching in my little dorm room in Faith Hall, I turned that verse into gifts for some of the dearest people in my life who were associated with the university, and it’s so good to still be able to look back and have that verse ring true in my heart, even if perhaps some of the relationships have changed. 

I pray for Cedarville, and I especially pray this weekend for its incoming students which include some girls who I love dearly! It sure has been an adventure these past nine years. 

A Place to Rest

I think everyone needs a place they can run to and rest . Ultimately we should run to God, but I think He uses places and people we can run to, to experience Him in the ordinary.

When I was a child, it was Living Waters. Everything just made sense there. My creativity, mind, and worship just flowed there. It was the place in those deepest darkest nights of winter I wished I could just run to and everything would seem better, even if it wasn’t actually. Columbus Day Weekend as soon as I had left the campground, I would be counting down the days until the first weekend of May when I could be back. 

My coming out to Ohio in 2017 was extremely difficult for me (I’m sure plenty of you remember) and I couldn’t just escape to camp anymore. At first, it felt like I had nowhere to run and hide from the burdens of life, and it took me a while to find a place of rest among the craziness of campus and college life. First, I found it at the home of Jon & Lynette Rarick, who took me in on many occasions and in what they might not have known were some of my darkest moments. Eventually, as I blossomed into my own, I found this place— Cox Arboretum, where I am currently sitting on a bench and writing this out— listening to cicadas whine and a lonesome mourning dove.

It’s not the most quiet park (it lies along Interstate 75), nor is it the most peaceful (I’d bet it’s the busiest of the Dayton Metroparks), but it’s the place where I can escape to find God and find myself, too, time and time again. When I finally got my own car in 2021, it was one of the first places I ever drove on my own. When my heart was broken time and time again by the same guy, I oftentimes found myself here among the trees, turtles, and flowers. I trace God’s hand in all the creation that roam here, even the little caterpillars which are currently crawling alongside me.

It has helped me cope with many a loss, and many a time of confusion and unknown. Praise the Lord it has also been a place of much happiness for me— I brought Alec out here on the day we officially decided to date, and we took our engagement portraits here. 

Usually by this time in a year I will have come here 10-15 times, yet this is only my second time here this year. It’s been an odd year, one where it’s been harder to find joy and see God in everything. I haven’t even felt the desire to come out here, but thank the Lord today I did. I was shopping for a book at Barnes & Nobles, and when I stepped outside I finally felt that urge and followed it despite knowing I probably had other stuff to do today that could take precedence. But the last two months have beat me down. Deaths that have made me recall the fragility of life, more career opportunities that have had doors shut and left me wondering if I am not good enough, having the hope of two little feet to soon paddle across our floor and that hope being extinguished almost as quickly as it’d began, and the fact that now both of my best friends live in the DC Metro area. 

I needed a break, I needed rest.

So here I find myself on my favorite bench, not with a pen and paper as I normally would be writing, but instead on my rinky-dink notes app, which is surprisingly good in a pinch to let my words flow and emotions quell. Now, I will say my allergies are KILLING me out here today, but I do suppose that’s the one downside of being out in nature. I wish you all were here with me to experience it; amidst the noise of cars, I’d hope you’d be able to commune with God and yourself, too. It’s a beautiful, balmy day with just enough puffy white clouds to provide some shade if needed. I hope you all can find a place like this, or multiple places if you’re lucky. For the hour I’m here it feels like I can breathe again, where I’m reminded that it’s all in God’s timing and He has me where He wants me…even if maybe I don’t want to be there. ;)

PS do not consider this to be my return to writing and/or blogging, though I’m sure my husband would really love that. I rarely get the itch to write anything of legitimate worth nowadays. Today, it felt right though.