Most would agree that change is awful, scary, brutal, or at the very least uncomfortable. We fight change, we hold onto the rope until the flesh of our palms is all but entirely sliced to the bone. We don’t want that thing; the job, the school, that person to change. So we fight because, how will it ever get better than this? Even if it’s not good, it can be fixed, right? Ultimately, we have no control, we are not the captain of our own soul. Life is full of reasons and it all comes in seasons. C.S. Lewis said “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different…” Fact is change is real and it happens to the best of us.
This article isn’t about the five stages of grief we muddle through when things aren’t how they used to be nor is it a consoling read for those who would agree with John Green when he said “it hurt because it mattered.” There’s plenty of hug-you-through-it things out there. This article is about the part of change that is too often overlooked, ourselves. It’s all about you. You matter. It’s not that everything and everyone around you changed, maybe so, but you’ve changed too. That’s what the key is here. You are different now, too. As a result of those past seasons you’ve changed. The things you’ve learned, the people you let in, the places you spent your time it’s changed you, and that’s good. That’s good because life is about moving forward. (Please understand moving forward happens as quickly and flows as smoothly as you want it too.) The most important thing about change is you, because when things change, you change too.
Understanding that you are the most important factor during times of change-not your friends or your circumstances-but yourself is highly beneficial because it prevents us from going backwards. At first it may feel sorrowful that the person we were before all that went down is so not who we are now but it isn’t, there’s no sense in swimming upstream, simply flow with the current. The old you couldn’t help the new you anyway. The person in the mirror today is an older, wiser, stronger version of the person who was reflected a year ago. Suddenly there’s no need to lick our wounds because it’s not the hurt we feel anymore, the scars we bare are the signs of a competitor and they’re meant to be celebrated.
As I mentioned in a previous article life is a balance between “hold fast” and “let go.” Let go of the past unless it helps you with the present. Relinquish pain, preferably through prayer because Christ unlike time, heals. Hold fast to the moments that won’t ever repeat, cling to the gems of truth and honesty that improved your heart, and make it your mission to look back in love. The old you couldn’t do this, there would be no success, only abysmal failure. Thank God you’re different now. Beautifully scarred, lovingly pressing on.
Mindless Peace 