I ran out on my first all-campus communion.
The traditional mosh pit had been overwhelming and the breaking point for me that day.
Taylor University was my third institution in my transfer journey. I came in broken, confused, lonesome and unsure of the faith I had claimed just the year before.
The plastic communion cup, with its wafer and sour juice, sat in my desk for an entire year — I never took my communion that day, knowing my heart was not in the place it needed to be.
I came to Taylor in Fall 2022. Two years before that, if it had been my choice, I would have never come — not when I was 18, wide-eyed and fresh off the high school graduation press with personal convictions planted in rocky soil.
After two transfers and years of wrestling with God, I’ve realized that even when I am not faithful, He is. Everything I once desired, the Lord has transformed into a new plan for me — a great gift flowing with the reminder that in the deepest of rifts and shakiest of storms, He is good.
A friend once told me about this idea of “God-winks” — moments, big or small, where we see God smiling at us in blessing. My time at Taylor has been just that.
I would collect communion cups in my desk drawer that entire first semester. I would go through lulls, highs and learning curves months during and after that. But most importantly, I would feel the Lord’s love seeping into the cracks of my life.
I was stubborn enough to come into Taylor expecting that I would shut myself off from others completely; dramatic, I know, but at the time was a result of cliquey rejection I had experienced from so many Christian settings before.
Yet the companions who would wedge their way into my life those first few days at Taylor squashed that prideful mindset the minute I arrived. Those same companions over the years would inadvertently push me to toss out those cups and welcome a fuller relationship with Christ.
In my broken moments, in my pride, in my hurt, in my highest, in my utmost of joy, God renders humility and goodness — a goodness striking in nature but sweet to the touch.
Sobs in the Memorial Prayer Chapel, met by a prayer from a stranger who felt like an angel; the private tight embrace of a friend when my family started to feel like it was crumbling; the kind generosity of a mentor as I tearfully heard him exemplify the Lord’s grace; the thousands of laughs I’ve shared with individuals I misjudged before getting to know them — all pieces of God’s goodness in humbling me.
I’ve stopped collecting communion cups, not just because I started actually taking them, but also because to me, it’s a reminder; a reminder that I need not carry the burdens and hurts of my past.
Sometimes, God’s love overwhelms us in the most unexpected ways. It’s an incredible type of adventure — one where we need never be anxious, but one where we also know He is streaming after us around every corner.
Whether you know it or not, our Creator is continuously winking at you, peppering blessings from all directions. You just need to be present enough to see it.
