Its 10:45 on a Wednesday, I anxiously call my dear friend and mentor William Douglas, who I have yet to touch base with about what he would like to share with us in this next blog. He answers my Face Time and immediately realizes I am not being myself, I'm anxious, and I'm being short with him. He asks me what is the matter and why I seem to be under such duress. I share with him that I am barely hanging on in my academics, and falling more and more behind as each day goes by, My body is constantly in excruciating pain, especially in my hip, my knee, and my shoulder, All the places that I am currently having surgery. The worst pain of all was the one weighing down on my heart from all the stress, fear, and questions concerning my future and what is in store for me in the following months. William speaks to me in a soft humbling tone, "Who do you think you are?" I respond, "what?" and again he says, "who do you think you are?" I answer in a very sad...

During this meeting, my mentor went out to get some food off campus which was nice because I haven’t had enough time to eat out recently. Lately, I’ve also been skipping meals because of my responsibilities with Orientation Committee, Chapel Band, and tutoring a student. All of this is a testament to the hectic 2 nd Semester/B-Quad I’ve been experiencing which I got to talk to my mentor about. It was nice to have someone to listen to me and show an interest in how I was doing emotionally and spiritually. I feel like it’s hard sometimes to express how I’m feeling without being judged. In other words, if I were to express my frustrations, worries, or insecurities about my life, it could possibly come off as bragging about how busy and involved I am which I feel like is common in Wheaton College culture where everyone is expected to be involved, busy, or studying. It was comforting to have someone listen with an actual concern for my well-being without judgement or pre-conceived notions...

I always love it when I get to talk and catch up with my mentor, Stan Crosley, my future father-in-law. The other day we got a chance to talk on the phone a little bit, and update each other on life and what's been going on recently, since I hadn't had a chance to see him almost all semester due to a busy baseball schedule. He was watching the basketball tournament game, and we started off talking about that, transitioning into more serious things. A major update in my life has been that just recently I've found out that I tore my left labrum, a ligament in my shoulder. I had been playing on it all spring, because we had originally thought that it was just tendonitis. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the type of tear, it's going to require surgical repair, which means I will have to sit out of athletic activities for several months. We talked about how hard this is going to be for me, since such a big part of my life is not just playing baseball, but working out....

In talking with my mentor Jacob recently, the topic of trials in life came up. We may have a picture of the way we wish our lives to go, and we may have even put considerable work into making something happen for ourselves, but God has his way of interrupting our seemingly perfect and comfortable lives. In the pursuit of good for our lives, we may even have what we deem as sincere intentions and think we are doing whatever it is to bring God glory. But, God is the one who sees the heart. Oftentimes, when we least expect it in life, we suddenly hit hardship. The job offer may not come through, you may experience an injury while at the top of your game, a relationship may end (the list goes on and on). God does not introduce or allow difficult circumstances for the fun of it or because He likes toying with us, but He may allow things to happen in our lives because He sees something in us or in the course of our life that He wants changed. Regardless of how we feel in the time of sorrow o...

I talked with my mentor about decision making in learning how to respond to a situation instead of reacting to a situation.  We talked about some events in my personal life were I had made poor decision.  I have often made poor decisions due to not being on the same page as others.  One solution to this is better communication.  I need to be able to open my mind to see things in other people's perspectives.  I also talked to my mentor about giving my vocation meaning and purpose.  I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can actively serve God in my career.  A burden has been placed on my heart as to not waste my life and seize every opportunity to serve Christ.  We talked about finding God’s calling in my life

            Unfortunately, I have not been able to meet with my mentor, Mike, in person for quite some time now. While I am here finishing up at Wheaton, he is preparing for the minor league season to begin in Indiana. Nonetheless, despite not being able to meet face to face we were able to have a really good conversation recently. Honestly, I’ve never thought that I liked Wheaton, or college in general until quite recently. After coming back from spring break, though, it suddenly hit me that I only have a few weeks left at Wheaton. It has only been in the past couple of weeks that I have fully been able to appreciate how much of a blessing this school has been on my life. I have a wonderful group of friends that I have never had before, and I have learned and grown more here at Wheaton than I ever thought was possible.   This is really the first time that I have realized how good of an experience Wheaton has been, and how muc...

In the past two weeks I have been able to talk with my mentor a lot more than I would normally get to talk with him. Because in those two weeks we both had our spring breaks, we were able to Facetime and go deeper than just our usually small talk conversation.  My mentor applied to multiple internships and is beginning to hear back from them. Sadly, all the internships that he applied to were across the country, so if he were to get one them that would mean I would not see him over the summer. I jokingly told him that I am hoping he does not get any of them so we can hang out during the summer. After saying that, he told me how trusting God with his future is something that is so hard. Even when we tell ourselves and others that we do, our lifestyles and the things that we worry about do not always reflect whole hearted trust. He reminded me that it is so hard as students who work and study for jobs and security for our futures, to be okay with things like not gettin...

Over Spring Break, I was able to spend a lot of time with my brother and mentor Nathan. It was definitely nice to catch up since both of us were so busy during the beginning of the year with college and work. As I was back home, my brother and sister-in-law also spent a couple days back in Lake Forest at my parents' house. Since the whole family was back together, we enjoyed many meals and outings together which we missed out on for a while. One day, my parents, along with my sisters, went out shopping while me and my brother hung back at the house. Reading each others minds, we knew it was going to be a day dedicated to video games and playing basketball. Powering on our old PlayStation 2, we replayed several memorable games that we spent countless hours on when we were younger. While spending the day playing video games and shooting hoops we had various conversations about what was going on in each others lives. I recall asking Nathan about his transition to a new position withi...

Yesterday I got another chance to catch up with my mentor. Since basketball season is over, it was nice to reconnect with someone I hadn’t seen recently. We talked about many different things. We started by just catching up. We talked about the current events in our lives and discussing the stress we were feeling about the upcoming weeks. She is also double majoring so she mentioned that she was under a lot of stress this semester. We then started talking about our family backgrounds. I had never really heard her background story, so hearing her describe her family was really interesting for me since it gave me a good perspective on how she grew up. It also helped me realize just how important all of our backgrounds are. We also talked about the idea of resting. Even though our season had just ended, there’s always a sense that the offseason is not about getting rest, and its exclusive purpose is to get better. While improving is important in the offseason, my mentor emphasized th...

I was able to reconnect with my brother Ben earlier this week and later last week. He was on break this week and his wife works at the school so he decided to come down to Wheaton multiple days. I hung out with him on two separate occasions. One time all of the siblings hung out (Luke, Ben and Seth) and then another time it was He and I; one on one. We ate lunch together and just talked for an hour before I had to go to work. I had a qualifier that day so he was giving me advice about what my thought process should be going into it. He also asked questions like “How’s school going”, How is golf going?” and stuff at that nature. He also just finished up exams so we talked about how they were. He said that some of his exams were more manageable and some of them were very tough. It makes sense; law school isn’t easy.    This was great quality time because we haven’t seen each other that much throughout the first quad. The second hangout was at my middle brothers house and we w...