Change

We are in a time of dramatic change right now.  The days are getting shorter.  The breeze is more refreshing.  Before long growth will slow down and the leaves will change colors before falling in our yards.  Students are wrapping up summer jobs and family vacations and going back into a more structured time called the school year.  Parents, too, are involved in these changes as alarms go off earlier.  In just under a month’s time, we went from a house of six people to a house of three.  We move into new seasons of parenting, work, and health.  People move in and out of our lives.  

Sometimes I want to freeze time and live in an eternal now.  Things are good.  I’ve made progress on knowing how to live in this season of life.  Can’t I just live a while longer in this moment now that I understand it better?  But time won’t cooperate with my request.  It keeps moving forward.  And with the progression of time comes change.  I’m reminded of a line from a classic hymn: “Change and decay in all around I see.  O God, who changes not, abide with me.”  And that’s the one thing that will never change: God, and his abiding presence in our lives.  At the end of the day, we weren’t made for a set of circumstances.  We were made for God.  And that will never change.