God has been speaking to me a lot about change lately. This year has marked a lot of change in my life.
I grew up in a surprisingly stable home. My parents are still together, I lived in the same house I was brought home to from the hospital (only moving rooms for the first time in my life right before leaving for the Race), I went to only switched schools once in my life, and I went to my hometown university. I’m so grateful for this stability in my life, don’t get me wrong; it’s been a rock for me in times where other things around me seem to be crashing down.
I knew coming on the Race would mean I was intentionally leaving this life of stability and the known, and it scared me, but there’s nothing in the world that I wanted more.
I started to notice that change was happening all around me.
Change in the places I grew up but also changes within myself.
I’ve been learning that it’s in the change that I’m forced to come alive. I could choose to shut myself or embrace it as an opportunity, and see where the adventure will lead. I have to react to the changes or else I’ll be left behind. Adapt or move on.
We had our first set of team changes while at debrief where we rang in the new year as a squad. There was a certain beauty to this fresh beginning.
New continent. New team. New year. That’s a whole lot of newness all at once.
Change keeps on coming at me, but I’ve been learning that it’s in the uncomfortableness of change that God stretches us and grows us in ways we could have never imagined.
There comes a point when it seems like everything around you is fluid; it seems like everything is changing. It’s in this moment that we have to rely on the only one who truly is constant. God is the only thing we can trust to be unfailing and never changing. His love for us, his promises and his character are all constant. When we build our lives on anything but Him, it’s going to let us down at some point, it’s inevitable. When we build our lives on Him, we’re building them on a solid rock, a firm foundation. It’s a foundation that’s going to withstand any storm in our life.
Bob Goff is one of my favorite people. He lives an extraordinary life, but he intentionally lives. He shared some of his principles that he lives by, and one of them is to quit something every Thursday. He makes change in his life intentional. There is inherent value in change, it leads to lives that are well lived. I’m coming to believe that change breathes life.
