The trouble with freshman

I've mentioned before how there's a bajillion of freshmen here. You know how freshmen are. Immature. Rude. Spacy. Flaky. Sometimes scared out of their mind of the upperclassmen. Whiny because they miss Mommy and Daddy and home-cooked meals (although a lot of them still have Mommy and Daddy paying for everything). This class of freshmen is the biggest NAU has ever had. Seems like lots of fun, right?

Actually...it IS a lot of fun. The freshmen that I have come into contact with have been rather spectacular. In fact, most of the new friends I've made have been little freshmen girls. And by little...I don't mean little. Because I'm pretty sure Shirley has like a good 8 inches on me. And some of them are only like 3 months younger than me. These past few weeks, I've been looking at the freshmen that have been around me, mostly at church, (I may or may not ignore other freshmen because they bother me.) and I've been astounded.

At first I was like, "Dude. Why is it that I'm being drawn to become friends with them? There's lots of other new people here. And lots of people who were here last year that I still don't know." I've always gotten along well with people older than me and people in the grade just below me. I figured the reason why I get along with people older than me has to do with the fact that I've dealt with people older than me all my life. That happens when you have 8 older siblings, I guess. But, for whatever reason, it took me forever to figure out why I got along really well with the people in the grade just below me. Until I remembered that, if I had been born 3 months later, I would be in the same grade as them. Duh. I guess I just get so used to people being so surprised when I tell them that I'm 19 (or when I was 18) because they thought I was at least 21. Or when an adorable old lady last year thought me and Amy were twins and when we told her that there was a three year difference and one was a freshman and the other was a senior, she thought I was the older one. (Win!) Or when people tell my I'm more mature than most people my age. I have to remind myself that I'm on the young end of my grade. I'm a baby sophomore. I was a baby freshman.

And then, I come to realize that a lot of the freshmen that I'm becoming friends with are quite incredible. I mean, they're still obviously freshmen. Most of them still have that newbie air around them. A little bit unsure, not quite confident in what they're doing, a little bit shell-shocked, and they tend to stay in groups. It's like they're scared of older college students or something. But then I see their spiritual strength, I come to know some of the things they've had to do or deal with in their life, or see how they're handling college life and being away from home and I'm humbled. Because my life has been relatively easy. Most of my struggles have been emotional, and I've been able to get over those pretty quickly. And my first week up here was...well, I was a train wreck by the end of it. Not very many people knew, though, because I didn't know anyone at that time. So they saw me as the calm and collected freshmen who had been living in Flagstaff since June. These freshmen are so much cooler than I was as a freshmen. It's definitely humbling.

It makes me think of the whole rising generation thing. There are definitely many incredible souls here on this earth at this time, because we are the rising generation. I'm grateful for these freshmen  I'm getting to know. I'm grateful they chose to come up to Flagstaff and that our paths have crossed - Heavenly Father's foresight is incredible and I've come to recognize the importance of making sure that those people He places in my life become people I love, trust, and call my friends. Because that's why He places them in my life. So, yeah. I'm drowning in freshmen. But, they're pretty cool, so I guess it's not too bad.