Is Change A Good Thing??

Is change a good thing?

Five weeks ago, both my husband and I resigned from our positions at a job that we never expected to leave. It was truly one of the hardest decisions we've ever made. We have considered the owners and family of System Services Broadband, Inc. our family for many years. We leave there as life-long friends and colleagues. We couldn't ask for more. But change was necessary. We believe the major shift allows James to have a less stressful job, but it also affords me the opportunity to work full-time toward the completion of my book.

CAN I GET SOME HANDS IN THE AIR?? (See me doing the happy dance) Such an incredible blessing.

Writing has been in my heart for a long time, as you know. The fact that God gives us exceedingly and abundantly more than we ask is clearer to me than ever as I pen these words today. I am so grateful for the years worked and the friendships forged with SSB. I am also thankful for this new chapter we are beginning. God is so good to give us the desires of our hearts. We only need to ask. Yes, change can be a good thing. Outside, the season is beginning to change to Autumn. James and I have been making our transition as well. While we adjust, I thought you would enjoy a story about change that my dear friend, Nancy Lee, wrote. SEASONS Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The bright colors, the crisp air, the geese flying overhead. Each year I am not able to pinpoint exactly when autumn begins. Did it begin when I stepped out of the house for a walk after dinner and noticed that it was already almost dark? Was it when the air was chilly enough that I had to throw on a sweatshirt? Was it when I found the empty shells of butternuts and walnuts strewn across my lawn? Or was it when I felt the crunch of fallen leaves beneath my feet? Autumn begins each year with a slow fade...a slow giving up of the joys and blessings of summer to give way to something altogether different, but equally, or perhaps more beautiful. So it is with the changing seasons of my life. Not long ago I was in the midst of a long, beautiful, and intense summer season. The season of raising my four children was filled with the busyness of parenting, of activities ranging from 4-H to Little League and volleyball, gymnastics, and dance. The season of family gatherings, Sunday dinners around a full table, trips to the water park, and annual camping trips to the lake. The season of Sunday school and VBS; of teaching full time, of science fairs, competitions, and field trips. The season of watching out for my widowed Mom and gradually becoming her caregiver. Like the progression of summer to fall, I can't pinpoint when the changes began, and I am not sure exactly where I am on the continuum. But I am feeling the changes. Within just over a year, I resigned from my teaching job, became an empty nester, and my mother passed away. For me, the changing seasons in my life have been a stripping away of identity, of the things that have been important to me in the summer of life, the things that have given me purpose. The process of letting go has been painful at times, and I find myself wondering, "What is left?" I find hope in a simple lesson about photosynthesis I taught in Jr. High science class. The green chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down in autumn revealing the brilliant orange, red, and yellow colors that have been concealed all summer by the green pigment of the chlorophyll. In the same way, the pieces that made up the busy summer of my life are breaking down and changing, revealing something even more beautiful. What is left is the most beautiful of all; The most important identity - the one that has been a part of me since an August day when I was fifteen and gave my life to Jesus - my identity as a child of God. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Gal 2:20

Copyright Nancy Lee 2021. Used by permission.

The maple tree leaves at our cabin will soon be changing to a beautiful yellow-gold hue.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21 NKJV