An Open Letter to My Sister Starting College

  My dear sister,

   As you are about to start college, I wanted to share some thoughts and advice about roommates as someone who has lived through it for three years now. May you learn and not make the same mistakes I did.

 Don’t judge your roommates the first day. No one is themselves 
with all of the chaos, unpacking, and goodbyes. But know some of their weaknesses may be revealed. Though they may show it in different ways, they are as nervous as you. Be kind to them even if they are not kind to you. Communicate. Learn to be okay with silence. Learn how to break it. Learn how to meet their needs. Learn how to tell them yours. Don’t be the roommate that disappears. Don’t be the roommate that won’t leave the room. You may not become best friends. I know you want to, but you may not. But you will learn to love them. And for the first time you will realize what love is. It is loving them even when they don’t love you. It is treating them well even though they don’t treat you the way you want. It is putting them first. It is the way Christ loves us. And you will more fully understand His love and how undeserving you truly are. Your roommates will misunderstand you. They will comfort you when you are hurting. You may have fights. You may have tears. You will all need to forgive. Live the year with the mindset that all of this truly matters. Live the year like none of it matters. Because both are true. You are only a freshman once, and you may only get to love them this special way once. Because it is special. You are two or three strangers sharing one small room for a year. They may have better and closer friends, but you live with them, and love them and despise them in a way no one else at that time can understand. But if you zoom out and think of the tiny speck on the earth that you are, know you are not defined by your roommates. You are defined by God who looks at you, sees Christ, and has welcomed you into His arms.
   
  You may live with them again. You may not. No matter what, you will not forget them, whether you were best friends or enemies.