We all face change at some point in our lives. When we’re on the gaining end of change, its easy to accept and we think it’s great. But when we’re on the giving end, it’s a little tougher to be okay with it. As soon as we think we have life figured out, something unexpectedly changes and we?re left wondering why these kinds of things happen.

Everyone says that change is good. Sometimes I hear that statement and think, ‘I haven’t seen anything good come out of this. How could it be good?’ The good that comes out of change is that we learn and grow through those difficult times in our lives. Change can be a really good thing, because without something changing, we wouldn?t have what we love and know to be normal now.

A couple of years ago, I got to know a youth group leader named Becca really well. I was moving up to high school and I didn’t know anyone in our youth group. I was scared silly, but moved up anyway. My parents basically gave me no choice but to meet Becca, even though I was scared to death of her too, and somehow our friendship worked out.

Becca was someone I poured my heart out to and we would hang out with all the time I loved her to death and she became one of my very best friends. I didn’t think anything could change our relationship, but apparently, I was wrong.

I still remember the date, September 6, 2011, that she called me into her office and told me that she was getting married and leaving our church. That was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to hear. She had just started dating for the first time in June, and within a couple of months of that day she was engaged. At the end of February she left our church and she got married in March. It all happened in less than a year, and I thought, ‘That’s not fair, as soon as I really get to know her, she’s up and gone again.’

It’s been almost a year since she left our church to go to her new church with her husband, Carlos, and I’ve still had a hard time with not being able to see her very often. As I’ve had time to think about it, though, I’ve realized that it required change for me to get to know her in the first place. Had I not gotten to know her, let alone moved up to high school group, I would have missed out on that great friendship.

Often I find myself realizing that God is constantly taking our experiences and through them, shaping us more and more into who he wants us to be. Change requires us to let go of some things and see them replaced by others, whether we want it to or not. Although it’s sometimes really hard, it reminds us that nothing here on earth will always remain the way that it is and that only God is steadfast and consistent.

Paul writes in Romans 8:28, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” But sometimes, the good that God brings out of the tough things that happen in our lives isn’t immediately evident to us, at least for me. I tend to get so caught up in the pain and loss I feel that I forget that God sees the whole picture of his plan. I don’t always see the good that change brings, but I know that he’s said it will be there, and we can trust that he’ll do what he promises.

This past January, I came to Fresno Christian for the first time. Before that, I was home-schooled from preschool up. Going from a bedroom as a classroom and only my brothers and sister as classmates to a couple of buildings and a couple of hundred kids was a pretty big jump for me, and it was really hard. I liked life how it was before the transition, so I was not all that happy about the change. All of a sudden I had to live on someone else’s schedule, work according to standards other than my own, hang out with a bunch of people all day-everyday, and try to satisfy all of my teachers instead of just my mom.

I did not want to think about what good that transition could bring, because I honestly did not think there would be any. Somehow, though, I found it in me to tell God, “If there was one person that I could make a difference in their life here, it would make this chaos worth it.”

There was a little fourth-grader that was in my dad’s class, who had some pretty tough stuff going on in her life. I really wanted to get her to open up because I knew that she needed an older person to look up to who would just love on her. I got to help her crochet a stuffed monkey, read with her to improve her reading ability and just became someone who she could talk to and tell about things that she thought were exciting in life.

PODCAST: Change often yields opportunities: Dec. 12, 2012–

At the end of the semester, I realized that she was the person God had for me to impact, even if there was no one else. I don’t think she knew it, but I needed her too. She was a bright spot in my day, and seeing her made some of the days better than bearable. Every time I go to complain about that first semester, I think about that little fourth-grader and remember that there is a little bit of good in every tough experience.

Although this is still something I struggle with realizing, I’ve seen in life that change isn’t bad, because it fits into the plan that God has for our lives. It’s hard for us humans to accept because it may not fit into our idea of how things should be. We can’t always prevent change, but when things don’t go as we’d like or expect, our response will be what determines the outcome.

For more opinions, read the Dec. 10 article, College Corner: Tips on scoring cash for college.