The Unnoticed

  

photo by @jessica_tarno

     I didn’t cry at my high-school graduation. 

     All my classmates ugly cried with snot coming out of their nose as they hugged one another and I couldn’t get across the stage fast enough. All I wanted was to grab my diploma and get the heck out of my town. 

    I didn't cry because I spent most of my high-school career feeling unnoticed. I felt titled as "the nice girl who would give you a pencil if you asked"and I hated that label with everything. So when it came to moving 17 hours away for college not knowing a soul, it was my golden ticket to being who I wanted to be.

     My freshman year in college felt like a dream. I could finally be the perfect girl I had dreamed of being in high-school. You know, that girl? The one who is out with friends till 4 a.m. every night, who skips  class to go to the beach with her tight knit friend group, has photoshoots with the girls every weekend, and gets asked out by the cutest guys. I came in with this intense desire to finally be noticed.

       Then freshman year passed. 

    Instead of finally being noticed, I ended up burnt-out from pulling all nighters, having relationships that were nothing more than surface level friendships that looked good in pictures, and my bank account was drained. 

      All this leaving me to feel more unnoticed than I had came in.

        So I looked for something to cling to and I applied to be an RA. Maybe, just maybe this would be my one stop shot to being seen and known at my university. As a girl who spent three years as an RA let me tell you doing a party bust at 3 a.m. when you have a 5 a.m. clinical the next day does not exactly make you the most liked person on campus.

         And still I felt unnoticed.

      As college start flying by, fear set in.  I became fearful of being forgotten. I became fearful of people moving on with their lives without me. I became fearful of not doing something worthwhile while at PBA. I became fearful of being unnoticed again like I was in high-school.

        Man, did I have it backwards.

        I graduated from college this May and in about 3-5 years I’ll decide to come visit PBA. I’ll walk through campus and while a couple people might recognize my name, the majority of students will think I’m some random woman just taking her daily stroll through campus.

        What we all fail to realize is this core truth: 

        God did not create us to be recognized, do something big, or even to be noticed.

       

        After graduation I will fall out of touch with some people I’m friends with and forget some memories I made. I will not get to see the impact of all the things I did while at PBA. I’ll most likely never see how God used any of the elevator talks or midnight drives or caf chats to glorify Him.

       Yet, I’m okay if everyone on my universities campus forgets my name in the next few years. If the dorms I lived in get torn down and new buildings replace over the memories I made. If my successes and failures aren’t remembered. If I’m unnoticed as I graduate and move out into the world.

       I’m okay with that because God notices.

        Imagine you are in a room full of people and your closest friend is there. Someone says something and you immediately look at that friend. You share that certain glance and smile. You know you are both thinking the exact same thing as laughter tries slipping from your lips, knowing the secret only you two are sharing and thinking about.

      Learning to go unnoticed reminds me of that with God. Living out my love for God without seeking to be noticed. Getting to love others and do things to glorify Him, only stopping to lock eyes with God as we smile at each other knowing the secret things I’ve done that only Him and me will ever know about.

     In life God will take you through some big, exciting things, college is one of those things. Our faith isn’t just jumping from one big moment to the next. Most of life is filled with mundane, ordinary moments. Those moments include things like brushing your teeth, finishing a paper, paying a bill, or even riding an elevator.

          True faith isn’t just found in the big moments, but in the small ordinary day-to-day, the unnoticed parts of life. 

     God calls us as ordinary people to glorify Him and love other ordinary people who do ordinary things just like us. Going unnoticed is one of the hardest lessons I will ever have to learn, because by nature I'm selfish. I naturally crave to be recognized, seen, noticed. It is only by the grace of God that I can even begin to fathom the art of being unnoticed. 

          I trust that He is powerful enough to use me in supreme and mighty ways to glorify Him in the ordinary and unnoticed. I trust He has used me, these past four years, in ways that I can’t even begin to fathom until I’m one day in Heaven with Him.

         I also know that He notices. He notices and stands in a crowded room smiling at me knowing we share moments that no one will ever see.

     So why not go unnoticed today?