Change

It's an interesting topic. A paradox. Change is constantly occurring, and yet if it stopped, that would be a change. It's inevitable, unstoppable, hoped for, dreaded. We heard all about the need for change during the previous presidential campaign. It doesn't matter if you need or think you need it - change comes. Sometimes it plods along slowly like an old work horse; sometimes it blasts through like a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier and leaves your ears ringing.

The funny part is when a person steps away from their friend and expects the friend to stay exactly how they are at the moment until the person can return. Things change that they can't imagine and they come back and are shocked. I find it amusing, whether watching my reactions or the reactions of other people. It's bizarre that we are so self-concerned we don't realize that other people are changing every second whether or not we're around to behold it. The tree that falls in the forest without anyone to see it still fell.

Change is powerful. It can hurt; it can bring euphoria. It can disappoint; it can awe. And it can even do all these things at once.

The idea of change is good. Without it, we couldn't grow, couldn't think. We'd be forever stuck in an everlasting moment of nothing. Which would obviously be awful in a number of ways. Change is also just as subject to our wicked imaginations as every other amoral thing, which brings about people worrying about change. But the worrying is often a change for the worse in itself.

The way change comes is not predictable. All we know is that it's coming, not how, not when, in some ways, we don't even know why. We know it's coming; we know it's of God's plan; we know that He'll work it for good. But if we knew the rest, what would life be? I wrote once that I wished we were born with a walkthrough attached to help us get through life. A script to obey. I've changed my mind. ;) The lack of details are what make life . . . fun. The change is what makes it interesting. You think you're going one way and then, "Oh look. A brick wall. Huh." Didn't stop King David. So he couldn't build the temple. He prepared. He needed to do something. He needed to keep moving forward.

Yesterday's messages were great. They made me. . . . spiritually thirsty. I don't think they'd have had even close to the same impact a month ago. . . . Why? Change.

What do you do when change comes and one person sees it as good and another sees it as bad? When what one person considers progress is what another person considers deterioration? Do you hide it? Avoid it? Do you attempt to explain? Change is frightening. It's hard to try to prove that something that someone is afraid of really isn't a bad thing. (Like Beauty and the Beast - Gaston holds up the mirror and they see the Beast looking what appears to be ferocious and vicious when he's really just in mourning. Belle knows better. What happens? She attempts to explain and they lock her up and try to kill the Beast.) It's not easy to change the minds of fearful people. It's not easy to let go of fear of something that looks so obviously terrifying even when someone you trust is telling you it's okay.