How I Have Seen God…

I didn’t join LCM until my sophomore year here at the U of M. My freshman year, I didn’t see God, mainly because I wasn’t looking.

Fast forward to my senior year…

In one of the first weeks of this school year, I paused for a moment during on our events, and I thought to myself, “since when did so many cool people start coming to LCM?” I don’t mean to offend anybody who came to LCM prior to this acknowledgement. It’s my fault. The cool people were always here, and I wasn’t. Up until this past fall, I never realized their greatness. I wasn’t present enough to do so. I was too caught up in my own world, trying to be my own savior.

Well that didn’t work.

You can’t find God if you’re not looking. Up until this year, I wasn’t looking hard enough. And then I opened my eyes. I noticed those who were present with me, and there God was too.

I was having a chat recently with another LCMer, which sparked this thought process. She told me about how important has been in her life this year. She thanked me for being a role model. I found this funny, because I didn’t join LCM to be a role model. I came for the same reasons she did:

To find friends.

To find community.

To find faith.

To find some reason to be hopeful.

To find a place to struggle, where struggling is socially acceptable, and where others are struggling right a long side of you.

That’s where God meets us, after all, in the struggling. So it makes sense that this is where I saw God. We all have brought our whole selves to this place, meaning we brought our struggles, our insecurities, our worries, our doubts, our imperfections, and we’re still okay. We have each other, and we have God. This community has meant more to me than any community I have ever been a part of. Because the people are real. The people care. The people love. And in those people, I have seen God, because I finally had the sense to look.

I love you all so much, and I will miss you all immensely!

Best of luck in all that you do!

-Ellen