At any time that I think of who I am, I begin to think of my life. Where I grew up, how I grew up, the people I grew up with and so on. I believe that my parents have a big influence on the person I am today. My parents were missionaries overseas for fifteen years and a big part of our family now belongs with missions work. Although I do have some sort of idea who I am, I believe that with time I will continue to change and develop as a person. In a few years my interests may change, I may have different friends, live in a different place, and I might feel differently than I do now.
The question “Who are you?” is rather difficult to answer. At first I begin to think, “Well, I’m Stephanie Winslow.” Then I begin to think about the question more. Who is Stephanie Winslow? What makes me different from any of my friends or my neighbors? If someone were to ask me who I was, I’d simply respond with saying that I am a high school student along with my name, but I wouldn’t have much more to say. Often, when people ask about my life, I will tell them that I grew up overseas. I do believe that the fact that I didn’t grow up in America is a huge part of who I am today. The culture from Kazakhstan, the country I grew up in, is very different from the culture here in America. Seeing how the locals there acted and the things they did on a daily basis is very different from the way us Americans live. My opinion on things and how people act has been greatly influenced by the people I was surrounded by when growing up. When you are surrounded by people who act a certain way, one usually begins to act like that as well. A huge part of me is certainly influenced from all that I experienced in the twelve years I lived in Kazakhstan, while another part of me is slowly changing and becoming more American after being here for four consecutive years.
The second question “Where does the world come from?” is answered differently by all sorts of people. There are two very popular theories about the beginning of the world: God’s creation and the big bang theory. For me, the answer is very obvious. Ever since I was born I have been taught that God created the world. As I began to mature and learn to think more for myself, I began to think increasingly about where the world came from. Yes, I do still believe that God created the world in the exact way He planned to, but when thinking about how God Himself came into existence, it almost gives me a headache to think about. I’ve learned God has simply always existed. How is that possible, though? How could something, or rather someone, have always existed? Explaining how the world became is a very difficult task. There will always be somebody who is not satisfied with the answer you might give them. Every possible thought on how the world was created seems mind-boggling. There are different thoughts that people have on how the world became, but they all seem bigger than us. For example, I believe God created the world, but how was He created? Along with Sophie, I am also baffled how something could have created itself or always existed.
Even though I live in America now, my roots are still in Kazakhstan. That’s where I grew up, where I began on my journey of faith and a big part of who I am today. Kazakhstan was also a beautiful country where I could see that there is in fact a creator of the world.
