Changes…SIGH!
I am standing in what feels like the eye of a change-hurricane.The place where I am not making major changes, but many close to me are.
People moving away, folks finding new jobs. They are changing around me and I stand in the eye not changing, but watching the havoc that these changes are wreaking.
I’ll be honest. I don’t like change, but I don’t like others changing with me left behind to clean up the damage the hurricane has caused more. Seriously, it is much easier to move away than to figure out how to live without those who are leaving.
Don’t get me wrong there is hope, there are great things that change-hurricanes bring. It is God directing these hurricanes after all. He is guiding and directing people away and He will guide and direct people here. I have hope that God is bringing change that would not happen in any other way.
But I don’t like change. I don’t like it when other people’s change force me to change. Keep your change to yourself so that I don’t have to figure out how to change because you have changed. (Dizzying isn’t it?)
Change shows me where my security is found. I discovered that I put my security (or comfort) in whether I can see a certain friend on a regular basis or in unchanging staff at my girls’ school. Ridiculous. I trust God. But do you? Do I?
Honestly no. Change shows me how much I count on things going my way or staying the same or friends being in my town. It shows the ugly parts of my heart – the selfish, proud, satisfied with mud-pie life when God has more.
Maybe these people are having to change so that God can change me. Maybe my hard, foolish, self-sufficient heart is part of the reason God is bringing these changes. If only I am willing to listen and change with my friends.
I’ll be honest it feels like alcohol on a wound. It burns. But maybe it needs to. Maybe I need my heart to be cleansed. Maybe this change, that is sad for me and great and sad for them, is the only way God could make these changes in my heart.
C.S. Lewis said, “Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Today we would say microphone, but you get the point. God uses the hard, painful, difficult changes in life to wake us up. Shake us up and draw us closer to Him.
What is God teaching you through change? OR What has God taught you through change? I can’t wait to hear from you and connect with you!
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Patience. There are times I want a change so quickly I miss the underlying reasons for the change. Not all change happens instantaneously. Rather, some things are meant to be waited on, like a boiling pot or blossoming flower.
I’ve heard that waiting is the hardest part, though…
I am not so great at the waiting part, but you are right. God’s process is more important often than the destination. We think we want a destination, but God brings us there only to mold and change us more. As long as we draw breath there is more. More to change and more of a purpose that God has for you. But that is a different post! 😉
My whole married life has been one of change, constant moving, constant re-starting. There are some people I’ve always thought that would just know how to roll with it, just take things as they come without letting it wound and hurt them. I am not that person. God has used the uncertainty and change in my life to grow me in ways I would have never grown. Ways I never would have chosen for myself. I am just now, 12 years later, starting to see that, embrace that, and thank Him for it. I could have written this post, I SO know what you mean by all this. It hurts. Thank you for sharing and being honest.
Sweet Amy,
I cannot imagine moving that often. My parents have only moved once since I was born and that was after I graduated college.
I am so glad that you are able to embrace the changes that God is bringing you through these moves, starts, etc.
So glad this post touched you.
Change is hard because it makes us uncomfortable & we like /need that comfort & security! But I often find myself getting complacent when things are the same…so that change God brings challenges me!! Praise God He is Unchangable…can count on that!
Well Said Debbie! He is unchangeable!
I am so thankful that God is Unchangeable. Thank you for the reminder!
Hello if you are looking for a comment you posted. They aren’t gone, but they aren’t back yet. They will be soon. I am working on making it easier to comment. 🙂 Hoping it will be back up soon!
I needed this, we all are going through some kind of change and we let the human side of us tear at our heart instead of letting God redirect our feelings. Thank you so much for this message. Love ya friend.
So glad this blessed you. And you are so right that we let our hearts lead us instead of God.
Love you too!