Facing Change and Living to Tell About It

I’ve always dreaded new situations. Even as a kid I never wanted to go anywhere new alone. New park, new school, forget it. New dentist, okay ANY dentist is scary, so that doesn’t count. Seriously, I hated calling people I didn’t know or going places I was unfamiliar with.  Can you say INSECURE?

Lately the old feelings of anxiety have been making my heart pound again as I begin this new journey of blogging.  I could make a list a mile long of why I should put this off one more day, but at the top of the list is this: NEW SCARY UNFAMILIAR THING.

Let’s face it, change is scary for all of us.

Over the years I’ve faced many new situations, high school, college, becoming a teacher, marriage, motherhood, and as a pastor’s family, we’ve moved a gazillion times changing churches and houses and states along the way.

Somewhere in life I had to learn that the unfamiliar will not kill me, or at least it hasn’t yet.  Lots of things help us cope, but if I had to pick one thing necessary for survival, it’s sticking close to the One who never changes.

“I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” God says (Revelation 21:6).  As the world turns around us, children grow and wrinkles come, we have a God who “is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) That comforts me. With daily doses of a new-normal, His change-less-ness comforts me.

Here’s the irony though, our God, who never changes, really loves to mix things up.  He’s in the change business. 

Take me for example, when He found me I was stuck in my sin, alone, dead really, because my sin separated me from Him.  But, because He died to take away the sins of the world, and yes, that includes me and you, He forgave my sins and made me new.  Wow!  A new me!  Actually, changing people is His specialty.  “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) This change is wonderful, welcome and miraculous!

Not all changes are.  Some are definitely not.  But we know from the Bible that if God authored the change, we’ll be okay.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)

And apparently, I think, God may be leading me to blog?? (Is there an “uncertain” face I can insert here?)

It’s something I’ve been thinking and praying about for a little while now, then I stumbled across Revelation 21:5. “Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful.”  Now I’m not trying to take this out of context, he was clearly talking to John about all the new things coming: new heaven, new earth, when He returns.  But as I pondered Jesus’ words, I couldn’t help hear encouragement in my spirit, something like “Hey, you won’t be alone in this blogging thing. Write. We’ll do it together.”

So what about you?  What NEW SCARY UNFAMILIAR THING are you facing?  Is it a welcome change or are you resisting with all your might?  Do you have a choice or has this been thrust upon you?  Are you talking to the One who knows all about it anyway?  He’s ready to listen, you know.  You are not alone.

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Gretchen Huesmann

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