AUTHOR'S NOTE:
After my first official week of college, I could
barely breathe: I was overwhelmed, tired,
lost, lonely. Who knew that Brown would
feel so much like an “in-between,” a place
of inconstancies and impossibilities? I was
stuck on a tiresome hamster wheel of insecurity:
I would never find friends; I missed
home; I didn’t know where I belonged.
But that weekend, the Lord reminded me
that I need not fear. After my first meeting at
Cornerstone—the publication that produced
the magazine you now hold in your hands—I
ran back to my dorm and scribbled down this
poem in five minutes. I hadn’t known there was
such a community of believers at Brown. So
this was what it felt like to have a “lifted spirit.”
I could feel it literally—a weight in my heart
being replaced by hope. I was so encouraged.
This poem references prayer as “all that I
really need.” While I realize that the Christian
life is much more than just prayer, I was
experiencing a prolonged “moment” of insecurity,
rejection, and loneliness. I needed to
remind myself that my ultimate source of
strength is God—that He, not my friends or
family, should be the first One I turn to in
desperation. In the same way, the line about
comfort and self-confidence being “born
in the mind” is not meant to invalidate the
realness of our hope in Christ, which exists
independent of our emotions and/or our ever-doubtful
thoughts. Instead, it speaks to the
world-oriented perspective I had of myself,
which I was constantly comparing to the people
around me. Such a lack of confidence, I
hoped to tell myself, was the result of listening
to the negative voice inside my mind—
not the truth of the Gospel. Bombarded by
feelings of instability and the desire to autonomously
plan out my future, I reminded
myself that only God knows the plans He
has for me (Jeremiah 29:11). In other words,
I “simply [had to] follow and obey” Him.
Ultimately, the poem was written as a self-reminder
to seek God and surrender all to
Him. “Always [September 2018]” is the first
part of a two-part poem. Located at the very
end of this edition is the second half, which
is a response poem. Although many things
have changed, God remains the Always.
The last line of “Always [September 2018]”
alludes to a song that my mom shared with
me before I left for college: “God Will Always
Make a Way” by Don Moen. While
it played on her phone, I sat crying next to
my unpacked suitcases, cradled in her arms.
“I won’t be able to be with you anymore,”
my mom told me. “But God will, like He’s
always been. I am not afraid because
I know God loves you more than I do.”
And as mothers often
are, she was right. God
loves me infinitely. And
because he is the One
Constant in a world of
such inconstancy, He
is my Home.
As He is yours.
Kaitlan Bui is a sophomore
at Brown studying Emglish. Illustrated by Claire Lin '23
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