Accepting Change Even If You Do Not Want To!
The changing of the seasons in Utah
Standing on a mountain peak, I looked around the vast desert landscape before me. I have seen it before, but for today, it was different. I murmured the words,
“I have changed.”
It was something that burst forth from my mouth, in an uttered whisper, but there it was. I have changed.
And how I have fought against it. Friend, I did not want it. Have you fought against change? I wanted to live with familiarity. Of something I was comfortable with. Something I knew and wanted to stay the same. But I did not.
Have you had a change recently that was unexpected?
Beautiful waterfall in Utah
But change I did. I am not the same person who I was when I first left to travel with my husband and live in a RV. It has been 2 years now, and I could say it has been a long 2 years, but yet, sometimes I do not feel that way. So many times I wanted to return to my old way of life, to leave the RV lifestyle and go back to my roots. Fulltime Rving is not an easy lifestyle, but always with a set of challenges that could surprise you. It is a moving house on wheels, not a stable home on a slab of foundation. Everything shakes and shimmers and you never know what your home is going to look like when you find a spot to camp on and open your front door. Yikes!
But sometimes God does not want us to stay in our comfortable zone, non-shaky house zone. He has better for us, but it might not seem like that at first.
It is difficult, not a comfortable place, but can be prickly, sticky, thorny, something we want to shake off, but cannot.
We may want to run from that place and go back to the “old way,” the way of familiarity and comfort. We want to have it our way, but is that God’s way with you?
God has taken people out of their comfort zones in the Bible and placed them in places that was new, out of place, not in their usual elements. God called Abraham to sojourn to a country that was not his own, to multiply and have many descendants in the future land of Israel.
Joseph was forced to leave his family, his loved ones, all that he had known as a young man and leave to a foreign country that did not believe in God, but had their own gods, their own ways of living that was so different for Joseph. Yet, he was successful and the 2nd most powerful person in Egypt!
None of this came easy and quickly. It was many years of hard work, sorrow, disappointments and possibly questioning why they were there.
Hiking in Utah during the fall season
It is nothing new to God, but He wanted us to try this journey, as He might have you go on a journey. Think of it this way, when you start a new job, it is not the same as your old job. You will have new people to meet, new ways of doing your job, new expectations from your boss.
It is scary to see change happening to you. It can happen when you least expect it or it can be a welcome change in your life right now. Whatever it may be, change is inevitable and we all go through it. There might be growing pains, changing pains, and even rebellious pains.
This is what I went through: rebellious pains.
The weird thing is, I wanted this. I wanted this change, but when it actually started happening, I changed my mind. I did not want any part of it. “God please, get us home!” I would sometimes say in my mind, over and over. But He did not. We had to endure, stay where we were and learn to adapt to the fulltime RV lifestyle.
Life is not about getting out of difficult situations, but about enduring through them, growing and accepting the situation.
It is amazing how leaves change colors.
It is not about hurrying through the change, but understanding what it is doing FOR you, from the inside and out, little by little. God does not hurry us through change, but takes His time, like when we take our time pruning a flower. He picks the bad stuff out, as painful as that can be, and leaves the good stuff, like raw material, eager to see what you will do.
That would be you!
Change is hard and difficult, with most of us not wanting a change, but God has good plans for you through this change. It is important to be patient through the process as God does not hurry. This is where growth happens, as painful as can be, but for God, He has special plans for you.
“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.”
Change can be good and healthy for you!
What can you do today to accept change?