Stumbling Home | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Stumbling Home | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ellen Janson
05/01/24
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Michele cried most of the two hour drive to pick up her twenty year old son. She needed to get a hold of her emotions before she got to his college campus. Her son, Sam, was probably at the lowest point in his young life. And as angry as she and her husband were with him, they restrained themselves; they would not pour salt into a very open wound.

Sam would be returning home, instead of finishing his sophomore year at the state university. He would get a job to pay off the debt he had incurred and continue his classes remotely from his childhood bedroom. His future was very unsettled and not at all what he had planned.

BSU had been Sam’s first choice because they had a good ROTC program. More than anything, he wanted to become a marine, but his parents wanted him to go to college first. This seemed like a good compromise.

From the minute Sam started ROTC drills, he was in heaven. Waking up at all hours of the night, having his head shaved, being punished for incorrectly performing an exercise, etc. all sounded miserable to Michele, but Sam loved the camaraderie and discipline of it all. He thrived in the environment.

Until COVID shut everything down and sent all the students home the Spring of Sam’s freshman year.

After a long and quarantined summer, Sam was desperate to get back to campus, and back to ROTC training. But BSU was a different place. When Sam returned in the Fall, there were virtually no school sponsored sporting events or social activities, most classes were remote, and the constant random testing and quarantining were isolating and very stressful. ROTC drills were terminated at the beginning of the year with the first positive COVID case.

For lack of anything to do, the students began congregating in one apartment or another to play drinking games with ridiculous amounts of alcohol. One Saturday night Sam drank too much, and was picked up by campus security while stumbling back to his dorm room. It was the university’s protocol to call an ambulance - no questions asked - if they discovered an inebriated student who was under 21. Sam was taken to the emergency room where he was given a citation for both underage drinking and public intoxication. The ER visit included bills from the hospital, the attending doctor and the ambulance. Coupled with the citations, this was almost a $5,000 “mistake”.

Sam was very disappointed in himself, and while his parents were determined to hold him accountable, they couldn’t help but remember all the college parties they had attended themselves, and they empathized with the students in this new COVID world. They agreed to pay 50% of the costs, still leaving Sam with a very painful $2500 bill, hoping he would learn his lesson.

But Sam didn’t learn quickly enough, and just five weekends later, he was again spotted on his way home from a night of drinking games, and again picked up by campus security.

Sam was beside himself when he called his mom that February morning. When Michele suggested to him that maybe he needed to come home, he agreed through his tears, adding “this place feels toxic to me right now.” His dignity was completely shattered. He knew he had ruined any chance of earning the ROTC scholarship; possibly even of becoming a marine or earning a college degree.

It was a very long and sorrowful two hour drive back home.

Sam settled into his old bedroom, continued his classes remotely and got a job to pay off all of his newly acquired bills. It was a brutal Spring for him. He often felt like a failure, and his parents had to swallow their own disappointment to spur him on - constantly assuring him that though he had made mistakes, his life was not over and he was still very much loved. They cried in private and prayed for their son almost constantly.

As difficult as this time was for all involved, Michele never doubted that God would use the experience to grow Sam. That May, Sam completed his sophomore year classes, paid his bills, and enlisted in the United States Marine Corp. Four months later, his parents flew to Paris Island to attend his graduation from boot camp where Sam graduated with honors.

God had restored his dignity minus just a bit so that next time Sam might realize the weakness of his flesh and his need for a Savior.

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