Life at Hope College

Woah, We’re Half Way There. Woah, Livin’ on a Prayer.

Erin Hoolahan

There are less than 70 weeks of classes left of my time at Hope.

That’s the timeline facing any current sophomore that is graduating in four years. We’re almost halfway there. And it’s kind of scary.

There are a lot of things that I have no idea about that I need to figure out over the next two years:

All of that combined is simply overwhelming.

When moments come where that sense of the vast unknown lying directly ahead of me fills my mind I like to look up to the bulletin board above my desk.

One of my Summer 2015 projects: my vision board.

I put this together over the summer after collecting shells at the beach that I thought resembled little butterflies. In the top left it says “see your dreams take flight” and I have filled it with magazine clippings and pictures, most of which I’ve taken, that I wrote quotations onto.

I also left space to add to it. Some additions include a salt packet from when Paul Boersma spoke at Chapel last semester, fortune cookie papers, and a tag from tea that reads, “Let your heart speak to others’ hearts.”

The words on this board resonate with me about how I want to live and what I want to do with my life.

Not the “what kind of job do I want to have” kind of answers, but the simple things. The foundation.

Let all that you do be done in love. -1 Corinthians 16:14.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn HOPE that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. -Anne Lamott
Show the love
There is something in you that the world needs.

So when that overwhelming sense of unknown happens I look up and step back to the basics. These simple things are the foundation of how I want to walk on this path, no matter where I may be going.

And I know I am moving forward. A year and a half ago (to be honest, as recently as last fall) I didn’t know what I was going to major in. Now, there is a blank space on my board from where I made myself a mini major declaration form envisioning what I would choose to pair with my Classics major.

In the second major slot I had written “a major that I am happy with and proud of and is going to help me do what I am made to do. That turned out to be Communications.

So here I am, a Classics and Communications double major that is halfway through college and living on a prayer. A prayer for clarity, the peace of mind in knowing I don’t have to know it all, gratitude for knowing the simple things and being guided by a God who takes care of the rest.

Thanks for reading!
~Erin

 

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me at erin.hoolahan@hope.edu or you can check out my Twitter (@HopeErin18) for little thoughts and pictures about Hope.

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