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Lately, I have been thinking about the changes in our lives. Here are some of my thoughts.

The disciples faced a major change in their lives. Their Master told them He was going to leave them. They could not fathom what Jesus said. We have Peter and his misguided declaration of following the Lord to the end.

The youth at our church are facing a change in their lives. Our youth leaders all graduate from college this spring. All three of them came here from an adjacent state. The main youth leader and his fiancée, also a youth leader, will get married sometime this summer. We believe they will all return to their home state.

Several of us have been aware that this time was coming. Those in church leadership roles have been discussing this upcoming time and how to transition through this change.

Word has come to me that one of the comments heard from a youth member is, “I don’t like change.” I understand the thought. At different points in our lives, none of us like change. I believe one reason we don’t care for change is we have a fear of the unknown. We sometimes have seen change whose result caused more problems than were present before.

When I was a freshman in college, about midway through the first semester, one of the girls in the dorm told some of us she wasn’t coming back for the second semester. Some of us took it hard. Another freshman girl mentioned it to some upper-class girls in her Greek organization. She shared the response with some of us. “That’s going to happen the rest of your life.” The response referred to people moving out of our lives. As I have become older and have seen many changes in my life. I know the response given to one of my peers is true.

The disciples faced and eventually went through losing their Master. All but one of them deserted Jesus as the cross loomed bigger and bigger on the horizon. Our Lord promised to send a helper, the Holy Spirit.

Because of the arrival of the Holy Spirit they yielded themselves to Him, returned to Jesus’s teaching, and grew in their faith to aid in enlarging the Kingdom.

As a young adult, I taught a junior high Sunday school class. Late one winter, the pastor announced he had accepted a call to pastor another church in the southern part of our state. This pastor was departing our church after at least 15 years. (Memory won’t give me the exact number of years.)

When our class met again, the subject came up. One of the boys told the class that pastor was the only one he had known. I didn’t know what to say. Later, I realized these boys and girls feared the unknown.

Had I the wisdom I have now, I would have kindly explained that change will come to al of us.

Children grow,

Young people go to college or start working.

People get married,

People move to another neighborhood, community, or state. (I discovered earlier this year that a friend of mine’s stepdaughter moved to London, England.)

Marriages fail and dissolve

People succumb to death

Neighborhoods change

Cities change

Relationships change

If I am given the opportunity to share with the younger generation, I would tell them the same thoughts as I wish I had known back in the day.

Not all change is bad. When Jesus went to the cross, God sent the Holy Spirit to help us through the difficulties of our lives. We grow because of the work of the Trinity. Without the Holy Spirit, the disciples would have returned to their previous trades and God’s Kingdom would not have been enlarged at that time.

How do you react to change in your lives? Do you accept things easier as an adult than you did as a child?

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