Change

I lie awake at night, alone with my thoughts.  I seem to reflect the most in that time between sleep and wakefulness.  All that surrounds me during the day seems so trivial, but it is simply a covering for the deeper lines beyond.  The course of my life will be decided in these years and days.  Every action, every word, every thought, has a consequence: not only mine, but those of others as well.  Every movement in the pool of life, no matter how small, causes ripples on the water.  I am forced to change.  I discover thoughts and feelings that were previously unknown. 

Sometimes, there is no change on the surface, but in the heart.  I eat of the Tree of Knowledge and find it bitter.  A question posed compels me to fully acknowledge my priorities; not just those of today and tomorrow, but for the years to come.  My mind wanders to unforeseen horizons.  The weakness of my human nature casts doubt and distorts with wicked glee, but I am learning not to hate but to understand.  So many old emotions are presented in new ways: love, sorrow, compassion, hatred, guilt, frustration, and joy.  All of these are found in changes, coming from different circumstances, evoked by new things.

Change is inevitable.  It is difficult; sometimes nearly unbearable.  It brings about the worst and the best in us.  It takes those of true heart and makes them heroes.  It takes the careless and the wicked and casts them down.  Response to the hardest changes is what separates the true from the false and the valiant from the weak.  I have yet to know the full course of my life.  The inevitable change will always come.  I say today, “I will always be as I am,” and tomorrow I am not.  What little of my future I can guess is uncertain.  Change can bring revelation or cast doubt.  It brings forth light or takes it away. 

Humans shrink from change by nature.  That is why we seek so strongly for a purpose in life; it is something that will never change.  That is why we seek God, consciously or no; God is the source of permanency.  We make plans and dreams for the future.  Change thwarts them.  We search endlessly for something, Someone, to make us happy.  Change laughs at the irony, watching God call us.  It frustrates us continually.

Nevertheless, change is close to me, especially the part of me that is the military brat.  I know change, and I feel it knows me.  Not only do I recognize it, in some cases I welcome it into my life as I would a friend.  The more I move from place to place, the more I like to.  Humans naturally fear change; I was no exception.  This change in my heart was more gradual than most, so subtle that I hardly realized it was there at all for a long time.  There is a restlessness in me that did not exist previously; in a book it might be called wanderlust.  But sometimes I wonder if it is no more than a wish for continued change in order to preserve one permanent element in my life.  Life is full of irony: one of the simple things that makes it delightful.