Unchangeable

2014 was a year of change for me. To think that I began the year as an early graduate, attending DMACC and struggling through an exhausting job is kind of crazy. To remember that that rolled into achieving a CNA, going to senior prom, walking across the graduation stage is a lot. And to think back on how I found myself in Missouri, alone and uncomfortable (but good in the end), but then found myself even more alone at the University of Iowa and sitting in real life college classes and sleeping in a real life dorm. 

It was a year that handed me valuable oppurtunities, incredible memories, and wonderful realationships. So many of the people I now talk to almost daily I did not know a year ago. It pushed my passion for children and opened my eyes to our broken world. I cried a lot, but I also laughed a lot. It was hard, sure, but it was also very, very good.

And it was not only my physical situations that changed, but me as well. Recently I re-read several of my Katie letters from the summer and found a short, to-the-point list of lessons from Barnabas. 

While this list is clearly very simple I think it does a good job summarizing my year. 2014 taught me that my God does not change, as He is as stable as the mountains and more faithful than the morning. I have seen His love in each corner of my life, and learned that His will does not always feel good, but is still for my good. And above all else the Gospel is the foundation, and He does not waver in love. 

As I process my first semester of college I find myself looking back on my year as a whole. 

Spring semester was a trial in a way I still don't understand. More than anything I found it was lonely. Incredibly, overwhelmingly lonely. I realized more than anything else that my joy could not be found in my current situations, but in Christ alone.

These lessons in being alone served me well at camp, which was a summer to remember in about a million ways. Read about my summer, and know that it was so very good. But also kind of hard. Above all else, though, it was life-changing and full of growth.

Then came fall, where I was suddenly old enough to be in college (uhh…what?). My transition into college has been ridiculously good and I praise God for the people and situation He's provided. I found an incredible church where I have been able to get deeply involved. My school enviroment has been one that allows me to grow and live in a way that pushes me to run hard after Jesus. 

I am far away from where I started my year. That's a little scary because it seems my life is going to be a constant barrage of changes from here on out, most of which I have very little control over (getting into my program, my summer job, studying abroad). But looking back on this year I can see that that is ok.

Because everything on that little list is as true at camp as it is at Iowa or home or anywhere else I might go. Number four sums it all up: God doesn't change. Sometimes I don't think of that as a very comforting truth, but in fact it is a foundation for trust in His love and will for us. 

Jocelyn and I have been watching The Bible series on Netflix, which is cool because it starts with the Old Testament, stories I honestly don't pay much attention to. But wow, our God is powerful. 

We serve the same God that parted the Red Sea and tore down the walls of Jericho. The God that was with Moses, Samson, and David is still with us today. The faithfulness that saw Israel through forty years in the desert and the love that reached out to them through each sin is ours to have as well. And it only goes on through the Bible. The Gospel that redeemed Paul is reaching out to us. The Jesus that Peter trusted in is the one who stretched out His arms to us as well. The spirit the raised the Son from the dead is within each of us. 

As our world falls down and gets put back together, as seasons change, as life throws hurdles, and as storms come and go our God is constant, unchangeable, and ever-present. 

I have absolutely no idea where I will be in a year. 2015 is an adventure I have very little knowledge about. But I do have the absolute promise that God, the very same God I feel now, will be with me. That He will love me exactly the same, and that the foundation of my identity will still be His. 

Hebrews 13:8 says it simply, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

I love my little lesson list because it's full of simple truth, unchangeable truth, truth that prevails because our God prevails. Praise God for the comfort that is His consistency.

Thank you, 2014, for all that you gave me. And bring it on 2015, I can't wait to see what you have. 

Because no matter what my God, forever the same, is leading me. So what do I have to fear?