Wow. In a non-dramatic way, this was the fastest year of my life. I distinctly remember moving back to Biola back in August for my third year of living in Horton and on my floor, Jedidiah, like it was yesterday. I feel as though every aspect of this year has been a surprise, and everything, both good and bad, of how I planned things going, did not happen the way I had anticipated. There was so much good in this year and the thought of being a college senior in a few months is absolutely mind boggling to me— so let us ignore that fact for a quick second and reflect on what junior year was.

I moved into Biola earlier than everyone else due to the fact that I am on the Dance Team. I had just come back from Rwanda, Africa on a mission trip days before, and I spent a lot of the summer traveling around Europe, both for pleasure with my family, and to study in Cambridge. My experiences during the summer continued to teach me the fact that we are called to carry the name of God everywhere we go and we are called to do this well. This is what mission is. I came into Biola for my third year with a mindset of wanting every class I stepped into, every dance practice I had, every interaction I would have on my floor, to be one where I carried the name of God into it, for that is where fruit comes from. This honestly changed the way I saw my year and time at Biola. It was not as a time for me, but for the Lord.

And I needed that, for right when I moved back to Biola and dance team started I was instantly flooded with the same insecurities and fears I always have that are accompanied by dancing, and I saw that others felt the same way. As captain, I knew that the main point of this team needed to be the reflection of Christ and a reminder of the value of who these girls were, and I wanted to bring the Lord into everything we did. Dance dominated a significant amount of my fall semester between practices multiple days a week, huge performances at Biola’s Torrey Conference, Midnight Madness, and weekly fundraisers. It was a very challenging season of dance, not just with the time commitment, but there were also a significant amount of changes that led to many girls feeling frustrated and discouraged a lot of the time. I went through a season of discouragement pretty early on in the semester, one that I was not expecting to have, especially through dance as I was the captain and it was my third year on the team. I thought to myself ‘you have been through this before, why are you discouraged and beaten down?’ However, the Lord showed to me during this time that in seasons where I cannot depend on the strength of others or even the strength of myself, He is truly the only strength I can rely on. I had felt devalued, yet the Lord reminded me that my value was not determined by the words of individua