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Responses (sorted by date)
em: No Subject (8/15/09)
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I like to think that changes are easy to handle, that they are good, that I like them. In all actuality, they scare the crap out of me. Sure I like to know new people, visit new places, have a growing family, learn new things, experience adventures, but sometimes I would rather shut myself into my little house, close my eyes and hum to myself pretending nothing unusual is happening.
Change cannot be avoided. The moment we are conceived, our lives are determined by change. We change physically in the womb and once we are born, we change physically until the day we die. Even our bodies, once we no longer inhabit them, will be effected by change and deteriorate in the ground. The Bible says that once we reach heaven we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.
We are born with particular abilities and personalities, but even those are effected by change as we grow in maturity and intelligence. The thoughts that crossed my mind as a teenager are not of the same interest to me as an adult.
We cannot escape from change. The world around us changes each day. The sun rises and moves across the sky, the moon follows. The clouds that were in the sky yesterday are not in the same place today, nor are they the same formations or even the same clouds! The birds that sang a few hours ago change their tune as night descends. The water standing in a puddle in the morning will be kissed by the scorching afternoon sun and the puddle will be dry by evening with the former droplets now dancing in the air somewhere.
While living in Missouri, I welcomed the sweet Spring days or the intense thunderstorms that would rise up and shake the earth. I could feel in my spirit the change of seasons before they even arrived. In the Spring, my physical being quickened inside of me, warming like the ground beneath my feet, while in the fall, my spirit would nestle down in quiet waiting for the world around me to change. The feelings were as tangible as the change of weather and I appreciated them because I felt it prepared me for the change ahead.
In Tucson, it is harder to be influenced by the change in weather because it is less drastic as in other places. I don't feel connected to the physical changes around me. They just happen and I just go along, sometimes shocked at the jarring heat or lulled into a stupor from the virtually undynamic fall and winter. There are changes. The changes are only more subtle.
The weather in Missouri reminds me of one aspect of change and the weather in Tucson reminds me of another. There are times in life that changes are drastic like the oncoming of a tornadic storm. In the morning, the sky can be clear and sunny, but by the afternoon, the air is damp with heavy humidity, the sky has turned green and before you realize where it comes from, the tornado has dropped down on top of your house. Change can be like that. For once, it seems that I have a handle on things. My life goes along blissfully and I think I actually can see clear enough to know where I am going. The next moment, something completely unexpected falls down in front of me and I have to reevaluate life or head in another direction. Other times, changes mirror the weather in Tucson in that life is marked by small, incremental changes. The changes seem insignificant at the time, but once I stop and look back on where I have been since the changes began, I see that a whole year has gone by and it felt like just yesterday I looked at the world in a different way!
There are changes that we know to expect and love, like the changing of a long winter into glorious Spring or like getting married, having a baby or getting a raise.
I don't know why life is defined by change. Maybe it is God's way of reminding us that we don't know everything, that He can handle anything that life throws at us, that he orders even the most impossible, jarring, ridiculous of situations, or maybe it is His way of demonstrating that while all life is marked by change, in contrast He is the unchanging, forever loving, consistent God. He is the only true constant! That is the most comforting to me, that despite all of the unsettling changes that occur, I can always know that God loves me the same as He did the day before. The only thing that changes is my UNDERSTANDING of His goodness and His ways. |