Change - the only constant

Another year passes away leaving in its wake moments (or hours, months, seasons) of joy, heartache, surprise, loss and change.  A whole lot of change.  With the change in my life and on the calendar comes reflection.  It seems that every 365 days I find myself thankful for the passing of the previous year and hopeful that the one before me will be filled with the goodness the previous lacked.  How can it be that year after year that same feeling appears?  Perhaps it has more to do with my perspective than anything else.

In 2014 there were many changes in my life. Change in relationships, change in financial status, change in health issues, change due to decisions of others. There have been changes in my address, my insurance, my family and my friends.  For good or not, change is happening.  Challenges of blending families, making marriage work well and being a disciple even when you don’t feel like it all bring about change.  None of these things differentiate this year from the many years that have come before.  Change is the constant in all of them.

What’s the point of all this reflection? To change, of course! To grow, to learn, to do things differently in the coming 12 months than in the last.  Yet it is exactly change that I try to avoid.  Perhaps that’s the point.  I must stop trying to avoid change and instead embrace it,  For it is with change that I can grow closer to Christ and then closer to the woman that I am destined to be in Him.

Change brings with it the ability to trust.  The ability to rely fully on my Savior. I know without question that God is faithful.  Time and again He has rescued me from the world’s plan.  Often when we talk of God, our conversation turns vague or mystical. I am not speaking of a unreachable, uncaring God who pops in occasionally and gives me a “God Story” to tell in amazement to my friends.   I am speaking here of tangible, concrete ways that the Lord of Heaven and Earth rescued ME.  Not some ancient Pharisee named Nicodemus, not a prophet on a fiery chariot, not a fisherman transformed into an apostle but ME - now - in 2014. 

So, I will walk forward into 2015 and do my best to embrace change and to remember that without it I cannot transform into the woman that God has called me to be.