Nicole's Journey

Hi, my name is Nicole Evangelous and I’m a junior at UMass studying biology. I  grew up in a Christian household and I remember that as a little girl, reading was my favorite pastime and I would write in all of my books “Nicole Loves Jesus”.  Following God at age 10 and even throughout high school wasn’t  that difficult for me I was surrounded by a loving, Christian support system the entire time.

It wasn’t until I decided to go to the #9 party school in the US that I had to really chose whether I was going to follow God or not. Freshmen year was probably the loneliest time in my life. For some reason I had the hardest time making friends. I either made friends with students on exchange or the friends I made ended up transferring.

I think it was out of pure desperation for something to do and as a way to meet people that I began to party. I thought, what else is there to do in Amherst? And then the end of my sophomore year I got into my first serious relationship which quickly became another huge struggle in my life. My lifestyle was the definition of hypocrisy.

I knew that what I was doing was wrong but I couldn’t stop. It was Thursday night- Real Life, Friday night- party, Sunday morning- church. It wasn’t that I didn’t love God or didn’t want him to be apart of my life, I did. Just only certain parts. I wanted to be a part of the world so badly. So there I was holding on to my worldly lifestyle for dear life.

I was miserable and I hated myself. I found myself looking for something, anything to make me feel better. And in the midst of my searching I came right back around…to God. We sang this great song in church that had two lines which describe perfectly what has happened to me in the past three years.

“You’ve shone your light into my darkness…You are the end of all my searching.”

I encourage all of you to not let college be a time where you walked the line. Instead make the decision to follow God whole heartedly and see what he will do.

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