Features
Senior Reflection: Finding God on the Hill
By Kim Olsen ’16
October 1, 2015
I had attended enough college information sessions to know that college would be academically challenging and intellectually enriching, but four years ago, I don’t think I had any idea how spiritually life-changing my short time at Hamilton would be.
When I explain that I first met God on this campus, most people are skeptical. It is true that Hamilton is not known for its religious bent. In fact, the absence of a religious affiliation was a draw for me four years ago. And why not? I was in the middle of the most arduous year of my life: stressing to the point of pulling my hair out about college applications, and driving hours to visit my critically ill, ten-year-old brother in the hospital on cold, dark winter nights. My faith in myself had waned to such a point that I wasn’t even sure how to go on living, let alone leave my family and enter this strange new world of college life. My faith in God, a flickering light lit in my childhood, had been reduced to a few fading embers by the hypoxia of hopelessness.
All the same, I found myself in the Chapel. The insurmountable task of finding human connection when my crippling shyness kept my mouth closed seemed much less significant in this place. When Chaplain Roxanne Bellamy-Campbell chose to speak to me and hugged me when she had hardly learned my name, I experienced the warmth of acceptance and love that I had been missing since I had left home.
Not a month later, I received the distressing news that my mother had cancer. I felt that I had walked into a nightmare. Where others gave me pitying looks, those Christians who I knew embraced me, wiped my tears, prayed for me, encouraged me and watched over me in those trying times.
The incredible kindness that they showed me convinced me not only of God’s love for me, but also that I could be instrumental in showing that same love to others on this campus, and wherever I went.
Although I have a deep, strong connection to my family at home, I found a family at Hamilton in the Christian community. Their love and support has freed me from the crippling shyness I have had all my life. I feel that in some ways, I hardly resemble myself freshman year.
I know that I never imagined that I would become a Neuroscience and Classical Languages double major, serve as a leader for the Christian Fellowship, tutor others at the QSR center and with A Better Chance, coordinate Protestant Chapel services or—I mean seriously—get engaged to my best friend!
These have been years where I was challenged, forced to reexamine myself and what I want my life to be about. Although I still have my doubts sometimes, I am excited about the person who I believe I can become. I am proud to say that I have chosen to make my life about serving a good God and loving others before myself.
Looking forward to when I graduate, I am mostly excited to get married in the Chapel this summer. However, I am exploring graduate school and job options in teaching and in counseling. Whatever I do, I will do my best to show God’s love to others the same way it was shown to me. Maybe it will change their lives the way it has changed mine.