Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A Change Will Do You Good

I will lie to you straight through my teeth and tell you that I like change. I’ll say change is good because we all need something new in our lives every once in awhile and that change spices things up. I will now be honest with you and say I dislike change greatly. I hate how it makes my stomach feel and I hate that it makes me question all the decisions I have made up to the point of change. I don’t like it when other people are the initiator of the change and I don’t even like it when I am the one that makes the change. It just feels weird.

I’ve never been good at doing things differently. I may look on the outside like I adapt well, but the truth is I’ve probably spent my fair share of nights awake thinking about it all or in the bathroom being sick about it all. I just allow the changes to take over my whole body and I just run with it from there

Lately there have been some changes going on in my life that I am less than thrilled about in a selfish way. Some of the things are wonderful things but it means lots of changes for me. My best friend got married a month ago, my childhood best friend is in labor as we speak, my best friend from home has a one year old, one of my dearest friends isn’t around as much anymore, another friend is calling less and less, other people are caring less and less. It’s just all at once. When it rains it pours right?

What I’ve realized is that I have allowed these people to become so much to me that I don’t know what to do with myself without them. I have allowed their lives to become my life and then I find myself saying “This stinks … now everything has to change … what will I do now?” I asked myself this question in the shower this morning and realized that what I do now is easy. I live. I wake up everyday and put one foot in front of the other more grateful each morning for the fact that the Lord isn’t done with me yet. But … I love my friends no less. If anything, I love them more!

I think a lot of these changes are not permanent, the babies and marriages are, but the feeling of being left behind because of these things is not. My mother says you just have to get used to a new normal. What was before was normal and now this will be normal. I’ll start looking at my phone less and less hoping to see that red light blinking. I’ll start expecting fewer phone calls and text messages. I’ll expect less unplanned visits and late night snack runs to Sonic. This will become my new normal and it will hurt less and less. All of this will different but all of this is what was planned for my life. Soon I won’t remember the old way of doing things.

My insecurities come into play when I wonder what I did, or KNOW what I did, to make some of the other changes to happen. The people who call less could be doing so because of something I said or did. After saying “I’m sorry” numerous times, it might just not have been enough. The hurt I caused or the frustration I brought about might not have been enough for that person to be able to move forward with our friendship. I understand this all too well. We are accountable for our actions. We reap what we sow. I hope it doesn’t take me losing people to realize these things.

So as the wind blows and things change, every second I pray I begin to embrace the changes that are happening in my life. I pray I look to the Lord for comfort and I pray I never let go of His hand as move through it all. His plan is in place and change is a part of that.

Come to think of it I wouldn’t want to stay where I am now. I hope for change in my heart and while I hope for that I do hope some of the people who seem distant in my life will return (I also hope this sick feeling in my stomach goes away). I hope they return in a bigger and better way. Perhaps when they return I will have changed … they will have changed … and it will all be different … the way it is suppose to be.

One thing I know for sure … I can rest in knowing God isn’t going to leave me or change. He is the unchangeable. In a world of change He remains. On Christ the solid rock I stand!