the thankful project: a choice

Happy Monday! Today, I'll be joining along in The Thankful Project. If you haven't heard about it yet, you should jump on over to Chasing Happy and read a little more about it.

Today's topic is a choice.

This was pretty easy for me. I had two immediate choices come to my mind. The first was my choice to marry Jake. It is by far one of the best decisions I have ever made. Although, I wasn't alone in that choice, really. So instead, I'll write about my second choice.

I am so incredibly thankful for my choice of where I went to college. When I started looking at colleges, I had no idea where I wanted to go, but I did know that I didn't want to go to Anderson University. Simply because that was where my brother was going to school and I felt I needed to be my own person. Little did I realized that having my brother at the same college would be one of the biggest blessings. But I was immature and stubborn and had made my mind up-- here is no way I would go to AU. But to appease my mom, I applied to the school. Thankfully, a few months went by and God intervened. He opened my eyes to see that AU might not be so bad. And I am so extremely thankful that He did. This was the first time I recall God really calling me to a certain place and it was a defining moment in my life.

There are so many things I could say about college. There were ups and downs. Lots of studying and hard work. Late nights and early mornings. Lots of changes and lessons learned. Lots of growth and maturity. But really, it shaped me in a way I would have never imagine. It challenged my faith and helped me to figure out what it is that I really believe. It led me to people who are some of the best friends I could of ever asked for. Friends who like me for me and who have become more like sisters than friends.

And then one of them actually did become my sister. So that's pretty cool.

Then college led to grad school, where I met these two. And maybe I'm biased but I think I have some pretty great friends.

And then of course there is this guy (reread my first choice).

I could really go on and on about how this choice affected and changed my life in such a meaningful way. So many blessings have stemmed out of that decision. I will forever be grateful that I had a choice and for the one that I made.