Embracing Change

How do you feel about transition? Do you dread it or do you choose to embrace it?

Do you joyously accept change and actually look forward to the next season of life with exuberant expectation? Or, do you drag your feet while looking longingly backward?

How do you feel about transition? Are you going through an unwanted and unwelcome upheaval of seasons today?

I’ll never forget the season of change that blew into our lives when our oldest son, Matthew, left home for college. He was 18 years old and definitely ready for the next season in life. Matt loved the Lord, was wise beyond his ears and couldn’t wait to begin his days at a Christian university.

I wasn’t ready for him to be an adult … I wanted to go back in time and feed him baby food and rock him to sleep and read my favorite book to him, “Are You My Mother?!”

Matthew, however, embraced the freedom of college and independent living with a gusto that hurt my feelings! I loved yesterday … he longed for tomorrow.

We were both experiencing change … and Matthew was doing a much better job of it than I was! He became the teacher and I became the student, which was a strange reversal of roles given the fact that I was the mom and he was the son.

Change is one of those intangibles in life that has the inherent capacity to either bring out the emotional best in a person or the emotional weaknesses in one’s heart.

Often times in life there is absolutely nothing we can do to inhibit the shift and so we must ride the exhausting yet exhilarating wave of change.

We must ride it or drown.

Kids grow up and leave home … bodies grow older with the passing of time … summer turns to fall … expectations change … finances change … styles change … moods change.

Some change is well within one’s power to control.

I can either choose to go to college or not.

I can choose to let my children leave my little nest or not.

I can choose to spend too much money or not.

I can choose to eat that donut or not.

I can choose to read my Bible or not.

I can choose to love my husband or not.

I can choose to exercise or not.

I can choose to ask God for wisdom or not.

I can choose … or not.

Transition. Change. Shift. Evolution. Conversion.

I can also choose to stay stuck in the safe little rut of the past or I can choose to march bravely toward the future with a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

I can determine that the very same God Who was with me yesterday will be with me tomorrow.

I can joyfully choose to trust Him and all that He is while my world is shaking with unwanted and unexpected quaking.

I can remove my eyes from the rearview mirror of life and set my gaze on all the wonder that lies in front of me!

Oftentimes, when I am experiencing an upheaval in my personal circumstances or the realignment of a season in my life, I force myself to lift my hands toward heaven and sing the song that thousands and thousands of world-weary saints have sung before me:

“Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father!

There is no shadow of turning with Thee.

Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not.

As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be!”

It is in that place of resolute melody that I am able to convince myself that although the world quakes beneath me and the storm roars around me that I serve a God Who faithfully and unchangingly takes care of me.

And so … rather than to panic in the midst of unwelcome change … I choose to sing.

Rather than to worry when the world seems topsy-turvy … I choose to rely upon the Father Who never changes.

Rather than to hold onto the good old days of my old-fashioned and out of date past … I choose to welcome the glory and goodness of God in all of my tomorrows.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8

I believe that sometimes the Lord allows change … even stirs up change … so that we, as His beloved children, do not place too much value in a certain season of life.

Truly, the stability of circumstances only presents a false security. God calls us to trust Him and not to treasure the things of this life.

I believe that God, the One Who never changes, actually loves change because it causes His dear followers to follow only Him and then to refuse to cling to the fake assumptions of visible consistency.

Has your world been rocked due to the effects of transition?

Did your last child leave the nest recently?

Are you newly retired and find yourself valiantly searching for purpose and productivity?

Did someone whom you love dearly recently pass from time into eternity?

Did you receive an unwelcome and unexpected medical diagnosis?

Were you the victim of a pink slip at work?

Have you been left with the raw and jagged edges of regret?

Do you wish you could have a “do-over” on yesterday?

Do you falsely believe that your best days are behind you?

Perhaps, like me, you need to learn to rejoice in today with all of its changes, in all of its differences and with all of its delights!

Perhaps you need to sing a song that reminds yourself that God will have the last word during every tumultuous time in your life!

Perhaps you need to embrace change like a long-lost friend and just reacquaint yourself with the possibilities of a bright and captivating tomorrow!

Get your walking shoes on, sister! Walk boldly into the future with the expectation that God will meet you there!

Get in the “go-position”, brother! You are about to run a new race that only God can help you to win!

Stop whining … and start singing!

Quit worrying … and start worshipping!

Cease dreading … and embrace the unknown!

I love change, don’t you?!