Meet Jen

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Jen.  She and her husband, along with their adorable little girl LeYanna, are the Resident Directors of the only co-ed dorm on my college campus.  Now Jen was never my RD, but I always seemed to have lots of friends that lived in her dorm or were on her RA teams, so I wound up spending a significant amount of time over there, chilling in the lobby or hanging out with that RA team.

Some time ago, I decided that I wanted to be like Jen when I grew up.  One of things I loved about spending time at Jen and Cory's apartment was that as soon as I walked in the door, I felt comfortable.  I knew that it was a place where I could kick off my shoes, curl up on the couch with a blanket, put my feet on the furniture, and snack on the M&Ms on the kitchen counter.  Jen and Cory's door was always open (figuratively).  They know that God has placed them in a unique role of ministering to college students and they have embraced that calling whole-heartedly, choosing to roll with all the quirks that come with being a 30-something couple who still lives in a college dorm.

Take today for example.  I wrote a note on Jen's Facebook wall asking if we could get together for a coffee date the next time I was in town so that I could pick her brain about things like going to seminary.  (She's a girl who is going to seminary for fun.  We have a lot in common.)  She immediately responded that yes, she'd love to get together, but that she doesn't love coffee, so we'd have to get her a Coke instead.  Or I could just come over to her house and hang out.  You have to keep in mind that I was never one of her RAs or even one of her residents.  I'm just a washed-up-ex-RA who graduated and now doesn't know what to do with her life, and Jen is still willing to open her home, spend a few hours with me, and be my friend.

I want to be a person like that.  I want to be a person who opens their life and home to people.  I want my home to be a comfortable place where people can put their feet on the furniture and eat the M&Ms.  I want my priorities in life to be on loving people and helping those people to love Jesus more.

Another thing that I love about Jen though, which is probably more important than feet-on-the-furniture and M&Ms, is her honesty.  All you have to do is scroll through my FB news feed and you'll see lots of statuses from young wives and moms going on and on about how great their husband and/or children are.  Now, I'm glad that these people enjoy their families, and I'm definitely NOT a fan of people who complain about their lives all the time, but Jen has an incredible ability to be honest about the struggles in her life, and yet not be a complainer or a Debbie Downer.  She loves her husband to death, but doesn't gloss over the fact that marriage is hard.  She adores her daughter, but doesn't hide the fact that 3am feedings are a total pain in the butt, and that being a mom is exhausting.  She loves the Lord deeply, but doesn't pretend that walking with Jesus is always easy and full of sunshine and rainbows.

Jen's honesty makes her such a great role model for the young women she mentors.  If you talk to most girls at a Christian college, they're obsessed with getting married to the perfect Christian guy who takes them on sweet dates all the time, never farts, and always puts the toilet seat down.  I love to hear Jen's perspective on things, because she can be a dreamy girl, but with a healthy dose of reality thrown in.

I'm grateful to have people like Jen in my life, and I hope and pray that I can be the sort of friend to others that she has been to me.