Change - Ready or Not

I'm not ready for this.

I want to cling to summer just a while longer.  I didn't rock or swing on the porch enough.  I didn't swim enough or bury my toes in the sand enough.  I didn't walk or bike enough.  I didn't smell enough flowers or watch enough fireflies.  I'm not even sure I ate enough Dairy Queen.

Oh, I love the brilliant colors of fall, crackling leaves, bonfires, picking apples, hayrides, fresh cider, doughnuts (one or two), crisp air.

I don't like what fall portends.

Winter.

Winter does hold its own magic.  The purity of white.  Snow sparkles in the moonlight.  Hot cocoa and buttered toast (or hot tea and cinnamon toast).  Baking my body in front of the wood stove.  An outdoor hot tub at the base of a ski hill.  Snow angels.  Squeaky footsteps.  Even blizzard excitement.

But...winter!

Sometimes bitter cold.  Shorter days.  Rising at night.  Occasional blankets of depression.  Hibernation tendencies.

Yet after winter comes spring.  And the cycle continues.  Predictable--for the most part.  One of the reasons we like Michigan.  Changing seasons.  A time and season for everything.

John Bunyan wrote, "It is said in some countries, trees will grow but will bear no fruit because there is no winter."

We need winter times.  We need change.  Changelessness means fruitlessness.  It portends a funeral.

Some changes sweep over us while we search for shells on the shore.  A child sent to war.  A life-threatening medical diagnosis on a routine visit.  A fatal accident.  A pink slip.

We anticipate some as we watch approaching storm clouds.  A parent placed in hospice care.  A disintegrating relationship.  Financial collapse.  A loved one who refuses to admit an addiction.

Still other changes are sought and welcomed.  Marriage.  The birth or adoption of a child.  Retiring or a new career.  A change in residence.

And yet even those changes are seldom easy.  In fact, "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." (Anatole France)

How do we respond to change?

We can fight it.

We can resign ourselves to it.

We can embrace it.

I've learned:

When unwanted changes come, lean on the One who is changeless.

When change can't be controlled, lean on the One who controls everything.

When overwhelmed with change, lean on the Healer of Humpty Dumpty hearts.

To everything there is a season.

Come Fall.  Come Winter.  I'm ready now.

Are you?

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.  (NIV)


Copyright © 2009 by Sandra Heska King