In the past few years I have noticed and realized a few things. Every time I travel somewhere for a while, when I come back, a part of me still thinks that everything is going to be the same as when I left. Everything in life wherever I left, will be put on pause. My siblings along with the kids that I know aren’t going to grow up much, I can pick up my friendships right where we left without much change, and the city that I grew to love will not have new buildings and different stores from what I know.

I first came across this weird left out feeling the first time I visited home from college. I had been living in Kalispell, Montana for 15 years, and now that I left, all these changes were happening. I didn’t know how to feel. My best friend from high school was going on with life, yet I wasn’t a part of it as much. I always thought I was able to cope with change really well, until then. I thought things and people's lives were going to be put on hold while I was gone. However, they weren’t. Things changed even when I didn’t want them to. Now that I've been in college for a couple of years and gained some life experience and wisdom, I've realized that I've made new friends and that Lewiston is growing on me. Kalispell is slowly becoming the place where I grew up, but not necessarily where my heart is, which is strange.

Now this last summer I was in South Lake Tahoe, California all summer on a mission trip with an organization called CRU, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. Any time that I have come from a summer mission with this organization I come back to college as a different person. At times I still think, “Oh, it’s only two months... how much could have happened without me here. I’m sure not too much.” Nonetheless, I was wrong again. Surprise surprise on that one. In the two months that I was gone, one really great friend moved an hour away from me and my best friend and her boyfriend decided that they are going to get married and then move two and a half hours away. Then for my schooling, some of the greatest professors that I have had either are on sabbatical, retired or got another job somewhere else. Life keeps going no matter where you are and how many dear memories that you have with those people or places.

Don’t get me wrong when I say that I am happy and excited for all these new things happening in my friends’ lives. For my friend that got a job, he’s still a dear friend that I stay in contact with and hang out with when I can. My friend that is getting married asked me to be the maid-of-honor in her wedding. Things change. It happens when we least expect it. But we have to take it one day at a time and keep our heads up.

I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord.
Isaiah 66:9