Change is Coming, But from Where to Where?

It has been about two weeks since I shared anything to think about with you. The subject of this STTA is the reason. Few of us who have hung around for any length of time think that we can live our lives in stasis, "a state or condition in which things do not change, move, or progress" (Merriam-Webster). Besides that I've seen enough science fiction TV and movies to know that stasis is not a good state. Generally, though, we live with the illusion that the change in our lives will be manageable. I'm growing old, but at a rate slow enough that I can adjust day-by-day. My health changes, but with modern medicine I treat this, take a pill for that, and still muddle ahead. Children leave home, parents die, friends change jobs, but normally these changes are like tweaks--the bulk of our lives stay the same; the differences are not all encompassing. Sure we see in the news that there are people whose whole lives are disrupted--the refugees, the victims of horrible tragedies, or those who face maladies for which we, even with all our technology, have no solution. Those are other people, though, they exist in some realm that is extra-ordinary. The change that comes to we regular folk is handed out in palatable doses. It's packaged with easy hand-holds. It comes to us in such a way that at the end of the day we can say, "I've got this." No I don't, and I doubt you do either. I don't want to appear to put myself in the group of people, like those I mentioned above, who are dealing with change that comes so hard and fast, that it produces blackout G-force. Over the past month, though, I have seen and experienced change to an extent I know, not just theoretically, but experientially, that there is no throttle in my hand that I can use to control the ride. I'm like one of those early test-pilots. Strap in, Let her fly, grit my teeth, and hope for the best. There are several factors that have made the changes in my life of late register higher on the Change-force Meter than any time in recent memory. I was already involved in preparation for making a change when my change was changed. Here I was buying plane tickets, trying to get things buttoned down back home, thinking ahead about returning to a place of service several thousand miles from home, when--hard-right, accellerating all the while--my "orders" were changed. I was already involed in a life-adjustments--setting up housekeeping in another country and culture for four months, serving the Lord, being a missionary. These provided enough stretching that I was able to feel a bit noble. I mean, me being retired and everything. Then the change I was already comfortable with changed. Is that in the employee manual? The change that came barreling down on Kathy and me came for an ugly reason. It's because my friend is sick. He is one of those servants experiencing needle-pegging plan-revision. The new change threw me into a realm where I knew I didn't have control. Not only did I not know the lines for the new play, I found out rather quickly that the script was still being written, and the audience was already restless waiting for the curtain to rise. Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for sypathy. Perhaps I'm just passing the tenth story on a twenty-story plunge, but I'm doing OK. Maybe it's the adrenalin, but this aspect of walking with the Lord seems clearer to me. Trust is pushing aside self-suffiency. Yieldedness is taking over territory once claimed by two word descriptions that begin with "my." The illusion that I'm in the driver's seat is harder to maintain. While I don't necessarily like all of that, I do know that it is as it should be, at least most of the time, some of the time, OK, I'm still working on it. If you are curious and want to find out about the changes in my life, you can find out more here and here. I'll warn you upfront, as these kinds of things go it's really pretty boring, tame stuff. I guess, though, when you compare it to the way my life has mostly been--pretty predictable--it is enough to get my attention, just like I hope this is enough to give you . . .   STTA. Find out about how the Son of God redeems our past, gives purpose in the present, and hope for the future, here.