Changing Hearts, Not Circumstances

Here we are again, on to our next story. This story could not have come at a more appropriate time, as schools and colleges are going back, this story reflects about life as a current college student about to embark on adulthood, which is such an exciting and nerve racking time. It was such a privilege to do this story because I have known this person my whole life, as she is my younger cousin and it just so happens that Emily has also known this lady for quite some time as they graduated high school together. This girl truly is one of the sweetest people we know, and just has such a genuine gentle spirit. You definitely want to read this story with an open heart because she has a lot of great wisdom to give. So let’s do this…

Her name is Emily Shaw

Before we sat down for our Her Story conversation, we had to all meet and grab dinner with each other to play catch up because we knew this would be too long of a conversation if we didn’t play catch up before the story. Once we were finished with dinner we headed over to Starbucks and decided to sit and have coffee and really dig deep. We started the conversation off as we do every single one of these things. I asked Emily to tell us a little about herself and what she would want all you fine readers out there to know about her. She said, “I’m a pretty simple girl. First of all I love the Lord, he is good to me. I am a college student at UA (University of Alabama). Roll Tide. I’m a senior, I’m an engineer major. I have a dog, and I spend a lot of time with my dog. I have a great family (I like to put myself, Mary Beth, in that category) and great friends. They mean a lot to me. Shout out to you Mom.” We continued to talk about how sweet her and her mom are, and that is definitely on the record. If you know them, you will definitely agree with that statement.

I went on to discuss with Emily about her college life at a big party school in Alabama, and how she hasn’t really lost her values or herself in college. I asked her to discuss with us how she was able to keep a good head on her shoulders especially with the pressure to try and fit in. She stated, “I really wasn’t worried about it going in. I remember they always preached about it in youth group, that 8 out of 10 people, once they graduate high school, they graduate church too. I have always loved being in church, even since I was little. I just love being there. I knew that was always a desire of mine to go off to college and get involved in a church and have a community there. But that also led to my first few months being torn of where I wanted to go. Ultimately, I found one. During that season, I realized it wasn’t about the church because God was there consistently with me. And honestly, it was all about the people that I surrounded myself with. I went through rush and by the end of the week, I could tell personally that I was being drawn away from the Lord just by my thoughts. I know though there is good and bad with every organization. So within three days I decided to drop it. I removed myself from that pressure.” She goes on to discuss her growth during her freshman year of college, and her spiritual walk with the Lord. She discussed how her perspective of the Lord changed as her relationship got closer. She knows that when she follows him that he protects and guides her to surround her with the right people.

We moved on to talk about her pursuit to be a civil engineer in such a male dominated field. I asked her to discuss with us that journey of being in this field. She answered, "People would ask me why I went into engineering and I would tell them, I don't know, my dad sort of suggested it. That's the truth. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to feel like I was doing something, to prove something. It was intimidating at first, but it's not that bad. Every major is hard, not just engineering. I encourage other girls to be a part of male dominate field. I have always felt a part of the group with other men at the places I've interned out. Honestly, it's empowering to me being a women in a male dominating field. We are capable of doing those things. I'm really happy that I chose it." Emily explained that she loves that she is doing what she's doing, and is glad that she picked the engineering path even when she wanted to give up, which we discussed that every college student goes through. This led into our conversation about all types of women having different careers and none are better than others and people can do certain jobs but maybe not others. We all should be encouraged by each other's contribution to the world.

We moved to a more vulnerable part of the conversation about the things that Emily may struggle with and would want to share with y'all. I asked her to describe one of her biggest obstacles. She answered, "this is a big part of my struggle, it's goes back to needing to be a part. My freshman year of college, going to a big university, my first plan was to join a sorority, an easy way to make friends. When that didn't work out, i realized that I had to find another place to make friends. It was really hard for me to find a good group of friends. I would be surrounded by good people and they were my friends, but I never had a really close group of friends for the first couple of years of school. Don't get my wrong, I had great wonderful friends, but I had certain expectations of what college would be like and I was so focused on my unmet expectations to not see how wonderful all those fun times were. It was a really hard time for me. I would question my identity of who I was because I was wondering why people didn't like me. It was a really sad season of feeling lonely. Then the lord showed me that I was great the way I was. He created me how he didn't and I didn't need to worry about changing myself. But it continued to be a challenge because I still didn't find a close group of friends, so I began to get angry at God because I was finding friends in all the right places. I would join several small groups and still I wasn't able to find a really close group of friends. It was a bad season of bitterness that I was eventually pulled out of. God showed me there was a reason I was in a season of loneliness at this time in my life. I was able to start to enjoy my alone time for me to grow. God didn't change my circumstance, he changed my heart. My perspective changed. On a Friday night when I wasn't invited to do things, I used to get upset and sad, but now I enjoy a Friday night at home to relax, read a book, take a bath and enjoy that refreshing time to myself. There's a purpose for every hurt and this can be for anything that anyone is going through." It took a lot of time for Emily to reach this point, and she is still is learning. This was something that resonated with Emily and myself that a lot of girls don't talk about, especially when they have friends but don't exactly feel that closeness. Society has started making such a big deal about how many friends you have instead of the actual value of that friendship. Instead of focusing on the numbers, we discussed focusing on the depths of the relationship and enjoy growing deeper with a few close friends that you can truly invest in. Fortunately, all of us ladies have started to find those relationships and are slowly coming out of that season.

As we closed our discussion, I asked Emily my two favorite questions. First, I asked her to give some advice to the younger girls out there and here is what she had to say, "Be confident in who you are. My advice is to have your identity known independent of your surrounding. Your identity doesn't change based on where you are or who you're around, your roles change. We get that confused sometimes in transitions that you don't change you who are, which is your identity but your role in that season may be different. Like now you're a wife, which is a new role, but you are still you and who you are in your identity. Also finding beauty in every moment. We are God's creation, you can always find beauty in his creation. So find beauty in things and don't loose your identity." Such great wisdom.

Lastly, I wanted Emily to answer how she defined beauty and if she found herself beautiful. She explained, "Beauty can be found anywhere. It almost takes it a way when you say everyone is beautiful, which is true, but then if things are universal it doesn't become special. Everyone has their own different kind of beauty. I feel that it's a hard question because we describe a lot of different things as beautiful. I guess if something makes you happy then you find that beautiful. Things could be made beautiful if it reminds you of life. I think people are most beautiful in the little things. I love watching people in the little things of watching facial expressions change and seeing that excitement. And yes, I do find myself beautiful and that's taken some training from the Lord. I am beautiful because the lord made me, I know it's cheesy but it's true."

It was so nice to all of us together because I wish y'all could hear the whole conversation. It was refreshing to have all young women the same age just discussing these questions and really pouring our hearts out for this project. Emily had a lot of great things to say so I hope someone took some encouragement from Her Story.

Thanks again to Emily Shaw for being her kindest person ever and giving a piece of herself to our project. You rock Emily and I'm so happy to have you as family as well as a friend.

As always, thanks to Emily Smith, my sidekick in life for taking bomb pictures and just being the supportive best friend. Also, thank you to everyone who reads this little blog out of Birmingham, AL. We hope you continue to share with your friends and give us your thoughts. If you don't follow us on Instagram, please do at herstorybham.