College is a transitory experience.
For many students, college is the first shot at life on our own. It is an exciting time, free from parental guidance and still without the full weight of adulthood to bring us down.
Leaving the nest can grant the illusion of a familial divorce, chests puffed out with youthful naivety and hearts brimming with an abundance of optimism. There lies ahead a lifetime, ours for the taking if we so choose to take it.
These rose-colored glasses will not hold up under the daily pressures that life throws our way, and it is all too easy to feel lost and overwhelmed once they are taken away. This seems to be a rite-of-passage, complete with a conversion experience to bring us out of adolsecence and into the poeple we will become.
Our lives may not resemble the excesses of the Prodigal Son, but its principles still aim true. Family is more than just shared blood and complexion; family is a body of belonging and of love.
As a Christian community, AU is a place for fellowship, personal growth and grace. In a very real sense we are a family, sharing the highs and lows of our lives together.
Take the time to thank the people in your life that support you. Call your parents, share music with your cousin, visit your friend for their birthday, or play with your little brother on his Minecraft server. The time you have now to bond and to make these memories is now and only now.
You may not be able to choose your blood-relatives, but your family is yours to claim and proclaim.