One year has passed since I walked across the stage on the Quad, shook hands with the Chancellor, and accepted my diploma. That moment, dressed in cap and gown with the Columns in front of me and Jesse Hall at my back, marked my graduation from Mizzou and my inevitable entry into the real world.
In the year that has passed since that beautiful (and simultaneously devastating) day in Columbia, Missouri, my life has drastically changed.
Ironically, I didn’t enter into the dreaded “real world” of cubicles, car insurance, and counting paid vacation days, after I left Mizzou. Rather, I entered into what sometimes feels like a fantasy world.
China is its own world, and as a result, my life has changed more than I could ever have imagined. The changes I have experienced in China range from broad visible differences in everyday life, such as the language, food, and living away from my loved ones; as well as changes slightly more obnoxious, like having to maneuver around “The Great FireWall” (China’s internet firewall blocks Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all blogs), not finding clothes that fit when shopping (a sad, depressing reality), and watching people constantly spit all over the ground (even inside!).
Not only has my daily life changed, I have changed as a person in the past year. Away from the comfort and security of my family and friends, I have been forced to be independent and self-sufficient. I have to take care of myself when I’m sick. I have to find the directions by myself when I’m lost. And when something is broken, I have to fix it myself (no more relying on my Dad or the “Man of the House” at Ross Street : )
My perspective has been the most significant change however. Experiencing poverty firsthand has rocked me to the core. Seeing children who are covered in dirt because they haven't bathed in a month, talking with seventy year-old women who walk 6 kilometers every day to haul water, and living with a Chinese roommate who doesn’t have a bathroom in her childhood home are experiences that will forever be ingrained in my mind.
Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the amount of change I have experienced in one short year. I also anxiously wonder how much life has changed at home while I have been away. Sometimes, I wish things never would have changed. Why couldn’t my friends and I just live in Ross Street forever?!? (oh yeah, that’s right: Dad said I couldn’t afford to stay in college any longer, haha).
During these moments of apprehension, I find peace and comfort in the one thing that doesn’t change: J-sus. Hebrews 13:8 says, “J-sus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He will never change. In this crazy world of constant upheaval, endings and new beginnings, we can have confidence that He will be the one constant. Our rock. Our foundation. He is the Alpha and the Omega. When we focus on Him, the changes that overwhelm us and the uncertainties of life melt away because our future is safe in Him.
Although my life has been bombarded with extreme changes in the year following graduation, I rest secure in our unchanging Savior.
