When Everything Seems To Change

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”                        Hebrews 13:8

There are defining moments in history – tragedies that change life - from wars, 9/11, natural disasters to historic events like landing on the moon and medical discoveries.  Personally, we have events and moments that change our lives like graduations, career changes, the birth of a child to marriages and deaths.

For me many events and moments have impacted my life.  Besides giving my life to Jesus and becoming a Christian, two events have made an imprint forever on my life – my marriage to Dave and the death of Dave.  Both changed my life completely at the time and forever.

At the age of 30, I had prayed if God wanted me to be single the rest of my life, I would accept God’s will for my life.  Then God brought Dave into my life a few months later.  My life changed.  I began to not just think of myself but put Dave and our marriage as a priority.  God was still the center of my life, but I was now walking together with Dave.  He became my best friend and companion on this journey of life.  I had someone to share life with, to laugh and cry with, to go places and travel and to just do daily life.  Life was filled with joys and struggles and challenges and disappointments but we had each other to go through them together and hold each other up.  We walked the path of life together.

Then everything changed.  Dave was diagnosed with brain tumors.  We walked those last months together the same way we had the past 25 years with love, compassion and support knowing God was with us.

But then Dave died and everything changed again.   I no longer had my best friend and companion to walk through the joys and sorrows of life.  The emptiness and loneliness was intense.  Life was so different.  I knew my life would be different, but I didn’t realize how much.  I had been independent before meeting Dave and assumed I would just go back being that independent person.  But I had changed.  I so enjoyed sharing my life with Dave and we loved being together and doing everything together.  My mind had been rewired to share life with my husband.

Now, I had to rewire my thoughts to go through life without him.  I began to recognize that the one constant in my life had not changed.  God was still God.  God was still with me.  God does not change, but my relationship with God has grown more intimate and dependent.  While I did not like the change of becoming a widow, I have come to accept my current status and that I will never be the same again.  I have grown and matured in the understanding of relationships, therefore, my relationship with God has deepened and changed.

Daily, I take my Heavenly Father’s hand knowing He walks with me into the day.  Jesus walks beside me as my companion and friend, and the Holy Spirit surrounds me with strength and perseverance.  I am never alone.

Change is a natural part of life.  God created life to change, evolve, grow, and live in the seasons.  I have experienced changes throughout my life, but God has remained with me in each change.  Sometimes God held my hand and sometimes God carried me.  We may not want or like the change, but it is going to happen anyway.  It is finding a way to embrace the change, learn from it and live in the different.