This time of year we certainly experience a great deal of change on many different levels. With September comes a change in season as the leaves begin their descent from the crisp autumn breeze while school bells ring and Friday night football games are in full swing. We have to transition from the freedom of summer into the rudiment of routine all the while telling ourselves to settle into it. This is my life and sometimes I feel that this is my life’s calling - adapting to change! Just when I feel like I have begun to settle in comfortably, someone or something pulls the rug out from under me or the blanket from around me thus exposing my uncertainty and anxiety relating to change. After all, we are creatures of habit. I like my same seat at church, my favorite chair at home, and I get completely freaked out when my local grocery store rearranges the aisles and I can’t find my favorite foods. I like that which is familiar - who doesn’t?
During this political season we have been overwhelmed with this overused word – change (on both sides I might add so I stay fair and balanced!) One party says change is good while the other says their change is better - I am so confused! Change is change no matter how one packages it. Change asks something of us. Change asks us to trust. Change asks us to believe. And while this thing called change is doing the asking, it is also doing the telling. Change tells us to have faith and change tells us to remember.
Ah the winds of change! As a mom those winds have tossed me to and fro on many occasions. From first breaths, to first steps, onto first days of school then first dates, and first driving lessons. There are so many firsts and yet so many lasts. The last day our daughter really lived with us as she packed for college rode in on the winds of change that felt like a hurricane! How could God ask this of me? I have loved this gift more than Webster’s could define and now I have to let her leave as though she just rented a room for eighteen years? What was worse was that she was excited! I wanted her to be happy but a tear or two would’ve been nice! Her dad and I looked like a couple of wounded puppies as we drove our packed car behind hers in what felt like a funeral procession.
When we arrived we found elated kids and bewildered parents as all of us unpacked boxes and set up tiny dorm rooms. Our kids were taking their first looks as we were taking some of our last. As we said our goodbyes and bitterly fought back the tears, we watched our girl go to her door and yes she did it –she twisted the knife-she turned around and waved with a face I shall never forget. WE COULD NOT SPEAK! And if you know my husband, you know this is a rarity! We drove in silence for awhile knowing that if one of us expressed an emotion the floodgates would crash open. This was change asking me as well as telling me. I didn’t want to hear a thing I just wanted to turn the car around and pick up my little girl. But change was telling me that I couldn’t.
I had to do what change asked of me - to trust and to believe. I had to do what change was telling me - to have faith and to remember. It may be hard to do these things when it involves people or things that are never constant but as Christians, we have our Heavenly Father who changes not - He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is The What, The When, The Why, The How and above all, The Who.
Our answer and our reply to what change asks of us can be found in the comfort of our God whose love is always constant and whose hand is gently guiding us through life’s passages. So change tells us to remember so that when we are left staggering by those winds again, we won’t forget the One who held our hand through it before... not a senator, or a president or any other person…. just a Father that loves His kids. That love, that kind of unchanging love…..leaves me speechless.
BE BLESSED AND BE A BLESSING!
Joni
