In A World Of Change...

 Lately, I've been pondering just how essential it is, in an ever-changing world, to have the stability of a few things in life that stand the test of time. As earth rotates and years go by and we change and everything changes and nothing seems to stay the same...you need those places, those people, those traditions, those things that ground you when it all feels so very unstable. 

In recent months I've needed to go in for some orthodontic work - to the same office I went to as a teen with the same orthodontist and one of the same assistants who was there back then. Even though I'm seeing them more often now than I have since I first got those braces off close to twenty years ago, there's something nice about feeling as though you have longevity with people. As if something in life remained the same when so much didn't. 

Life was never meant to stay the same but some things aren't meant to change because God placed them there to hold us together when things threaten to pull us right apart... 

Following my latest appointment, I went shopping with my mom just for fun. I'd been feeling the tension of everyone and everything grinding me down for days and needed a mental break to re-set. Heading over to one of our favorite antique stores seemed like the perfect ticket. 

I've always had a love affair with old things. There's just something incredibly beautiful about a piece of furniture or artwork or design that has survived through the centuries. The weathered look of something that is still bringing life and usefulness to the world decades and decades later is irreplaceable. The fact that all the scratches, all the worn places only add to its charm makes me pause and wonder why we don't treat our own stories the same way. Why we fail to see that the passage of time only adds to the strength and the appeal of who we are. That our broken spaces are merely indications that we are still here and still useful and still important. That we only grown in value. 

A step into the store, and I notice that the place is covered from floor to ceiling in all things twinkling and Christmas. Special-themed trees sit everywhere and all items intended to bring smiling-joy dazzle the eyes as old-time Christmas carols with old-time singers that stood the test of time bring a hint of hope in this moment in time to my parched soul. I needed this. For the next hour or so, mom and I wander around the place, pointing out cute and beautiful things that speak comfort and peace and tradition and family and familiar, and I realize just how un-familiar it's all seemed for so long. 

Walk fourteen months through the darkest days of your life after losing one you deeply loved, then walk straight into a world-wide crisis for the better part of the next two years and you begin to forget what it was like to feel normal. Yet you also remember why you love these holy moments in the first place: it's what keeps you believing when what you've known falls apart...

On the second floor of the shop, I happen to look out the windows and see the most incredible sunset starting to develop. I make myself stop. Take it in. Watch God paint. Because, right there, He's trying to tell me something important. Remind me that I'm not alone. That He does indeed have the whole world in His capable hands. And that nothing can ever stop what He's got planned. 

Not my mistakes...

Not the pain of my past... 

Not the pain of the world's ache...

Not the schemes of those who set themselves against Him. 

He will go on. He always does. 

The sturdiness of all these items built many decades ago, the timelessness of the holiday spirit and the hope it brings, the stability of a doctor who keeps on caring for you year after year, the cycle of sunrise and sunset that reminds me light will be back tomorrow... it all holds me close for one precious second as I hear God saying, "Let me handle it all. Release that stress from your tightened body and give it all over to Me. Because all I ask you to do is trust me and hold onto the unchanging in a sea of change." 

If I've learned anything, it's that nobody knows what tomorrow will bring and all I want to do is still be able to sing when it all goes wrong. To come back to what I know is true and lasting and good. The world can turn and things can change but in the midst, God is there. Love is there. Memories and joy are there. It just takes a little bit of intentionality to find it.