The Only Thing Constant Is Change

Change.

What comes to mind when you think of Change?

Is it perchance autumn and the brightly colored leaves as the world shifts from one season to the next? Or perhaps it is water as it rushes along falling from one place to the next and joining the big river that is never the same again? Is it a fork in the road where the path you need to take breaks away from the path you are familiar with? Could it be watching the waves from the ocean crash upon the shore for just a brief encounter before the water rushes back to rejoin the ocean? Maybe you see a pebble breaking the glassy surface of a lake that creates ripples that grow larger and larger the further out they go? For me, I see Change as the turning of a page in an amazing book. The beginning of a brand new chapter in an epic story.

Any way you look at it, Change comes to us all, and it isn't always easy.

No matter how many times I encounter Change along this journey of life, it always seems to create and stir that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. It isn't that I fear it. I would even go so far to say I welcome it as a friend, but I still dislike that feeling of knowing that a season has ended, and I will most likely never again find myself within the same warm embrace of that place that has become safe, familiar, and happy.

Change brings with it not only sadness, but there is also anticipation and excitement because there is a brand new adventure waiting just beyond what we are able to see right now. Adventures that will be filled with new friends to be made, new lessons to be learned, new hopes to be hoped for, dreams to be fulfilled, new dreams to be sparked into being, and battles to be fought.

Change can be uncomfortable, but there is also a type of peace that comes alongside the discomfort. A peace in knowing that no matter where my path may lead me, my family and friends are always with me (even if they are not physically right beside me). There is a peace knowing that I am constantly loved and supported more than any words could ever be able to say. I can take heart in this because even though situations change, friendships continue to flourish and grow.

I have learned to welcome Change, maybe even crave it sometimes. It keeps a person from growing stagnant. It stretches you sometimes to the point you fear you may break into a million pieces, but rather than shattering, you find yourself stronger than you ever imagined yourself capable of being.

Change is never completely easy, but if it was, then we would never be challenged. We'd never grow or learn what it is to hope for something more. We'd never become any better than we are in this moment. The here and now is a beautiful gift to cherish, but cherish the change as well. It is all a part of the amazing life adventure that we all have the privilege of experiencing.

Change will always come. Sometimes it is unexpected, and other times you can see it coming from miles away. Learn to embrace it as you would an old friend. Be able to experience the sadness, realize how amazingly blessed you are to have something that makes moving ahead so difficult to do, remember the lessons you learned while that season was upon you, and always keep moving forward.

Just as any good story, one chapter must end for another to begin, and you never know what the next chapter may hold. The story isn't finished yet, and just because the chapter has changed doesn't mean you've closed the book. Someone is ahead of you that desperately needs something only you can offer them. Keep moving forward. The best is yet to come.