Suddenly, in my mind, I’m tearing my coworker apart limb from limb. How could she get the recognition that I rightfully deserved? This was the moment when I realized that pride was a problem in my life.
“You get a lot of time by yourself with Jesus,” my friend said, speaking about his semester abroad. “And you’d be surprised at how much you learn about him and yourself from that.”
Examen has drawn me more deeply into knowing God and myself. Through it, God has increased my gratitude and contentment while decreasing my anxiety and tendency to struggle with hope. It has also deepened my relationships with others.
I experienced Urbana as a college student. I experienced two Urbanas as an InterVarsity Press employee. I experienced Urbana 12 as a 2100 team member, arriving at InterVarsity’s National Service Center to start my job as a writer and editor just two months before the Conference.
For many of us, great InterVarsity staff workers are sometimes the closest thing we have to what we might consider modern-day saints. So as a very new follower of Jesus at 20 years of age, I had to work up a lot of courage to tell my staff worker about a secret sin that had been suffocating me ever since I realized how wrong it was.
