How do you handle change? I’ve never been one for disrupting the order of things and in fact thrive in routine and organisation. Change is something that always throws this into disorder, causing you to feel as if you have no control and as if you are out of place.
I remember when I was at Bible college over in Sydney and my parents told me they were moving over there too, the feeling was one of having the rug ripped out from under my feet. My stability and my anchor was back there (here) in WA. It was where I could come home to and where I could feel relaxed. Them shifting meant I would no longer have this refuge to go to. That was about 15 years ago and Mum and Dad have never really settled back in WA since that time. I’m not sure whether I have really ever adjusted to that but the longer time goes by the more I’ve come to accept it.
Acceptance. This is the place that I have found I need to pitch my tent in order to relax in the midst of change. Change always makes things feel not quite right, our old habits or routines carve a nice groove for us to sit in and all of a sudden we have no tracks to run along. Think about it, when a train runs along a track or an object runs along a groove it doesn’t really need steering anymore. A train needs driving that’s for sure but not so much steering. Too fast and it will jump the tracks, too slow and it will stop but at a regulated speed it will simply move forward, following whats laid out for it. I think that there are times when we need to form new grooves to run along, the old ones become too deep and too easy and when change happens we notice it even more. We need to start moving, accept that the grooves of routine will be reformed by time if we simply accept the change and move forward.
Accepting my changing circumstances is something that I realise I need to do much faster when it happens. Fighting what God has set in place is pointless and instead of moving forward steadily (and forming those grooves) means that we will simply sit still.
Change for me is something that is not always obvious. There are changes in my mind that I am having to make regarding what I THOUGHT I would be doing at this stage in my life. For example, I THOUGHT I would be living overseas as a missio, THOUGHT that my parents would be settled back here in Perth, THOUGHT I would be living in my old suburb, THOUGHT I would send my kids to a private school, THOUGHT my brother and I would live close by. I THOUGHT lots of things really and now I find that I am living in a completely different part of Perth in a house that is smaller than I thought mine would be, my family lives interstate and I’m a Pastor’s wife!
Ultimately acceptance assists us with adjusting to those new grooves, allows us to stop saying ‘what if’ and ‘but’ and replace that with ‘ok, lets get on with it’. There is a verse that I once had on one of my prayer cards years ago and its one that is repeated by Christians worldwide. It reminds us to stop worrying about things and accept that God knows what he’s doing. Have you guessed it yet? Yep, Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Hopefully I will remember to put into practice the jump from feeling out of place to accepting change. I’ll probably need a reminder though so if you see me complaining just say to me ‘carve some new grooves Amanda’ and just maybe I’ll learn this lesson once more.
