Seeing the Beauty Behind Change

I don’t like change.

I can’t help it. Change often takes more work. I have to alter schedules. Or how I perceive things. Sometimes it means missing someone I love.

Change means I don’t have control over things. You see, when *I* want to make a change, it isn’t really a change but an improvement or a tweak along the course in my life. I LIKE what is changing so it isn’t uncomfortable or painful or stressful. However, when life causes change, it often isn’t within MY PLAN so I painfully realize how not-in-control I really am.

But change is a part of living. We grow, learn, meet new people, change jobs, build relationships, add to our families. People move away. Some pass away. Jobs are lost. Things break down.

Change is constant, and I need to understand it and even embrace it.

I have been in North Carolina for the last week and a half, just in time to witness the beauty of the fall leaves. Living in Florida, I don’t get to enjoy this seasonal glory. Our four seasons consist of summer, tourist season, hurricane season, and Christmas season. (I digress…I LOVE living in Florida!)

Well, as I have been ooh-ing and aah-ing at the glorious reds, oranges, and yellows around me, I began to realize that these rainbow colors are a result of drastic change. You see, as the daylight hours shorten and the weather cools, trees send chemicals to their leaves so that the leaves are cut off from their nutrient pathways and begin to starve. Don’t worry, that is a good thing -- so the trees can survive the colder weather. Deciduous trees won’t need to grow much during the winter, and therefore don’t need their leaves to photosynthesize.

As the leaves lose nutrients, they can no longer make food from sunlight, and their green pigment organelles begin to die. They don’t produce any more green color, and acids build up in the leaf cells.

Well, guess what?

That is what allows us to see the amazing colors that are hidden behind the green pigments! Without that change, we wouldn’t get to see the beauty that lies beneath.

And that truth is applicable to us. When things change in our lives, we are stretched. We learn flexibility. We sometimes have to deal with finding contentment. We face loss or pain and have to work through it.

Life brings change because we cannot grow stagnant. We need to go through many of these difficulties so that we can see the beauty on the other side. God is always working in us to make us more like Him. He is re-forming us to create something beautiful!

By dealing with change, we mature. We learn to call out to our Lord. We discover what is important in life (and what is not).

I still don’t get all excited when things change around me, but I am beginning to understand its purpose. Looking back at my life, I can see how being placed in hard situations has made me more courageous and more humble. It has brought me to my knees often in prayer, and I have learned the joys of that habit. And I can try to see the beauty that is coming from this process.

Oh, and one more thing. In this changing world, be encouraged that there is one thing that will NEVER change:

Our Lord is always. He is eternal. He is never-changing, because He is perfect!

And He loves you!

Always.