Change

This week, we reformatted our hard drive (and by "we," I clearly mean "Nathan.")  As I was going through our files on Carbonite, restoring what we needed, I ran across a blog post that I had written two days before Bryan went into the hospital.  I never got a chance to publish it, but reading it was like taking a glimpse into a  different lifetime.  The post contained my thoughts on what principles were going to guide my curriculum planning for the upcoming school year.  For a homeschool mom, summer is a time to carefully research and deliberate over every aspect of each subject and textbook.  This year, I don't even remember ordering our curriculum!  I must have, because it's all here and the kids are using it, but seeing that unpublished post made me realize once again how my life has turned upside down in a span of only seven months (almost.)

I recently read that we should "embrace change as a constant."  And the more I ponder that, the more I think that it makes very good sense.  I like to think of my previous life as very stable and static, but that's an illusion.  In twelve years, I married, built a house, moved, had four babies, moved, renovated a house, moved, moved again, had another baby, moved, had two more babies...

Not a very static life.  And that doesn't even cover the small changes that are occurring each day.  My kids grow and change.  Their activities and hobbies impact our daily life differently each year.  My interests shift and I learn new things.  New friends are made and old friends move away.

Change is not a bad thing.  But it's not an intrinsically good thing either.  It's just a "thing"- a reality.  There is no way to avoid it, though many of us spend our lives making decisions that will minimize it as much as possible.

The key to handling change, I think, is to recognize that it rests in God's hands.  One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 16:3:

"Commit your works to the Lord,

and your plans will be established."

Although I know better, in my very human desire for control, I love to focus on the "and your plans will be established" part.  Emphasis on MY plans.  I behave as if the "Lord, I commit my works to You" prayer is just a formality.  Part of the magic formula to make sure that MY plans get established.  When I think like this, I am, of course, missing the point.

If I really commit every aspect of my life to the Lord, then MY plan will be to do whatever HE wants.  My plan becomes His plan, and that is the plan that is established.  Not my own plans.  My plans are short-sighted, limited by my finite viewpoint.  God's plans see into eternity.  There is no bend in the road that He hasn't already seen and accounted for.  He knows the height of each mountain, the length of each valley.  And He is the one who controls the change.  

"A man's heart plans his way,

but the Lord directs his steps."

Proverbs 16:9