Change

In life, there are many lessons.
“Don’t throw ball in the house.”
“Don’t eat that!”
“That is not a toy.”
“Yes, that’s what poison ivy looks like.”
“F is not for ‘Fantastic’!”
“That’s why it’s called homework.”
Some lessons better prepare you for the next time something like that happens. Some lessons prevent you from ever doing something that stupid again. And some lessons are there just because they had nothing better to do. But so far, the biggest lesson I have, and will ever have learned, is that everything changes.
Worms turn into beautiful butterflies, families grow larger, lives change, people grow, become wise, make mistakes and learn. Everything is always in a constant state of never-ending change. You can’t stop it. It’s like a zombie hoard that never tires. You can hide on your couch to get away-but you’ll change into a larger person. You can run a thousand miles to get away-but you’ll change into a stronger person. The only thing to do is to accept it as it is, and embrace the fact that your life will never be the same as it is right at this moment. You will never be able to go back, to alter what you said, what you thought, or the choices that you made. As someone once said, “ There’s no time like the present” and although I believe it was originally a mother yelling at her children to clean their rooms, they were right.
I believe that change is good, at least some of it. Good: your job changed, and you got a raise. Bad: your dog changed and ran out in traffic. Life is full of good changes, bad changes, and changes that just leave you wondering what in the world happened. But we as people, creatures of reason, discernment and soul, can affect that change. Just as a sail boat affects the wind around it in order to propel itself, so can we use change to propel ourselves through life. We can choose to let change affect us, and carry us down the never-ending, strong flowing river that we call existence, or we can choose to make like a trout and book it upstream, against all odds, to confront the change, and use it to better ourselves, the ones we love, and everyone around us.
Change can leave us depressed, unwilling to move on, content to sit back and watch as everything around us continues on it’s never-ending cycle, never bothering with even a passing glance. It can leave us in a state of unwillingness to become motivated, to pursue, capture, and then beat the information out of the rest of our lives. We can feel worthless, as if no one cares, as if no one sees the hurt we are in. We can feel that no one notices that we are angry, or depressed, sad, or just frustrated. We can feel that we have been stepped on, bruised and beaten, and left in the dirt, where no one can see us. We can choose to feel this way.
Another famous saying from an equally vague author, “Be the change you wish to see”. If we do not want to feel this way, than we must do something about it. We must realize that change will not wait for us, that we must pursue it, not simply ride it. But we cannot do this alone. We must make choices everyday. Some are easy, “what socks to wear…?” and some are more difficult, “what should I say at my inauguration speech?”. But each question must be answered, and some are too difficult to answer alone. Thankfully, the Lord did not intend for us to do so. He said that He would be there, always with us. Through the hard changes, the easy changes. The difficult ones, and the ones that don’t even matter. It doesn’t matter the occasion, He will always be there, to pick us up, dust us off, set us back down, maybe give us a little sip of water, and then cheer us on as we continue life’s race. He will be there, with something as simple as a pair of socks, or as important as a speech.
In life, where change is constant, God is the one thing that we can count on to stay the same. We will have our ups and downs, and we may waiver in the face of terrible change, but God never will. He will stay the same, day or night. Whether you go to a Christian school, and attend church, or you were just ruled a death sentence for killing eight people. God will never change. He will be there for you, when your down in the dumps, and He’ll be there for you when your singing and dancing. The Lord never changes. Past, present and future. That’s something we should learn to embrace, and when we do, it will make the change a lot easier.