Today, I have finally graduated in the truest sense of the word!

No need to lament the rapid passage of time, nor to regret past failures. Here, please allow me to briefly tell the story of a youth who entered high school with impure motives but was ultimately transformed by grace (the following is the draft of the graduation speech, with minor edits).

To be perfectly blunt, I left public education mostly because the pressure was too great—not out of some noble desire to pioneer Christian education in China. Countless times I have wondered what my life might look like now if I had stayed in the public system and taken that broad road. At the risk of sounding immodest, I learn quickly; perhaps my grades there would have been better than they are today. Once, while I was entertaining that very thought, Mr. Zhang said beside me, “Modern education can indeed produce a top scorer—but that top scorer may end up taking their own life.” Ah, we human beings are like that. We endlessly romanticize what we could not have, then forget to cherish and give thanks for what we did receive.

What have I received, then? The changes over these three years are so numerous, and even being able to stand here today was once something I couldn’t have imagined. If I had stayed in the public system and survived, I would now in all probability have become one of those who say, “If I were still a high schooler, I would say it’s simple, but now that I’m a college student…” We often joke that high school is the peak of our life’s knowledge, but most of the time, once the Gaokao is over, everything vanishes into thin air.

I do not know what the future holds, but I am certain that what I learned during these three years with the Gao family will not vanish like passing clouds. I gained more than knowledge: I learned how to treat people, how to stand on my own, how to face hardship, and—most important of all—how to commune with Him.

At our current age, too many of our peers are gradually becoming friends with the world. This is indeed a long-drawn-out spiritual warfare, but just as old John reminds us in his epistle, the world and its desires will eventually pass away, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

I know that I have been, am now, and will remain part of this battle. Yet what accompanies that knowledge is not anxiety or unease, but faith and faithfulness. I do not regret choosing this road, even if I first chose it for sinful reasons, because “all things work together for good.” I believe something beautiful has been prepared ahead. He will surely guide me—and all of us—along the road before us.