{"id":266,"date":"2002-06-09T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-09T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/?p=266"},"modified":"2002-06-09T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2002-06-09T22:25:00","slug":"what-might-have-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/?p=266","title":{"rendered":"what might have been"},"content":{"rendered":"

In response to Ginny’s<\/a> June 9th question<\/span>, I definitely have. And I believe that things would be very different had I not gone to Alabama.<\/p>\n


\nFirst, the decision I made to come to Alabama as an undergraduate had not only an effect on me, but I believe my sister as well. I could be wrong, but I believe that Brianna decided to attend Alabama in part because I had decided to go there. Among other life-changing events, she met her future husband there. Had I not gone, she might never have. Of course, that’s all speculation.<\/p>\n

It’s possible that I wouldn’t have become a Baptist if I had not gone to Alabama, simply because if I had never gone to Alabama, I would have never met the people who asked me one cold January night in a Baptist church that I was attending for the first time if I was interested in coming to the Baptist Campus Ministries. Based upon that, I might never have started attending Ozark Baptist Church back home.<\/p>\n

I certainly wouldn’t have met many of the friends that I came to know through the BCM, including, of course, my best friend<\/a>. I wouldn’t have had my heart broken in some relationships, because those relationships would never have existed. One would expect that to happen no matter what college I had attended. Specifics are the key here. The lessons learned are slightly different as a result of the situation that I was in.<\/p>\n

As a graduate student going to Alabama, I had the pleasure of making more BCM and MBA-related friends and strengthening the bonds with those I already had for a couple more years. I met people that I looked up to while looking down at them. (Cryptic enough for you? It’s really not, if you think about it.)<\/p>\n

How would things be different if I had gone somewhere else? There’s no good way to know, of course. I’d surely have a completely different set of friends, but I’d like to believe that I’d be as loyal to them as I believe that I am to the ones that I have now. I might be married right now, and working somewhere instead of preparing for one more round of grad school.<\/p>\n

And on that line of thought, one could extrapolate this question easily. If I had made the choice to say, go to Texas A&M or Oklahoma instead of Florida, what would be different? There’s no way to know, for I don’t know yet what’s going to happen to me in my four years in Gainesville. I certainly hope to make friends there. I may meet my future wife. I may decide that Gainesville’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and stay down there. Everything I type is accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders.<\/p>\n

I will say this much: I believe that if God meets you where you are, that means that if you’re willing, he can use you no matter where you’ve gone. I enjoyed my six years at Alabama. The memories aren’t all good, but anyone saying otherwise about their experiences is either fooling or not challenging themselves.<\/p>\n

I believe that I will do the best I can to do the same at Florida, and wherever I go afterward. And if I trust in God and follow Him, I believe that He will meet me where I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to Ginny’s June 9th question, I definitely have. And I believe that things would be very different had I not gone to Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-introspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1122productions.com\/brandon\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}