Change is in the air!

It is good that things change. People too. Sometimes that change does not feel like it is so good, but I have found that God has a plan to make it all for the good if I would just stop trying to figure everthing out! Sometimes I think that when we feel people change for the worse, that it is really just the fact that we did not know them as well as we thought we did. Change, after all, takes effort. So, we can make an effort and change for the better...but who makes an effort to change for the worse? Sometimes the revelation that we did not know our friends and acquaintances as well as we thought, is painful and saying they have changed is easier. The friends I have who have changed for the better (including myself) have made progress because we wanted to. We found ourselves, so to speak, and worked on areas that needed surrendering or shoring up. It didn't just happen.

Life happens. Stuff happens. Not all of it is good. It is what we do with it, what lessons we glean from the hard stuff, that makes us choose to change. Or not.

The friends I have that have fallen away from the "good life", from success and fun and joy, did so, not by "accident" but by giving up and giving in to pain and hurt and anger. The apparent change for the worse came from a lack of effort to turn the negatives into positives. So, is it really change, or just the results of the lack of effort? Holding onto the anger is easier than letting go, but the results are never good.

The weather is changing here. The monsoons are on their way. They are good. And they are bad. The make messes. They cause power outages, and sometimes fires. BUT they also bring rain and unique chemical reactions in the atmosphere necessary for the desert plants and agriculture. The storms of life are like that too. They can be messy, scary, and cause darkness and emotional fires...but they also make us grow in ways only such storms can. We can choose what to do about what life brings us. And we can decide change is good...if we make the effort. And if we "let go".

Change will come soon, I am sure, in one form or another. It will not be just the weather, but someone somewhere will surprise me with a challenge. And I will change for the better. "Let go and let God".