Change is inevitable. It is ongoing. Life is never truly at rest. The sooner we accept that life is always in motion and that things rarely stay the same, the more at peace we will be.
I am entering a season right now that I haven’t been in since I was a teenager. My Pastor, my mentor, and my friend is moving on into what God has planned for him. This is a season that in my past has proven difficult and even has brought me a lot of pain and loss.
When I was in high school our Youth Pastor moved on to another church to pursue God’s plan for his life. To me as a teen who looked up to this man, it was devastating. In fact the manner in which I reacted was what lead me to walk away from God and journey down a road that left me searching for answers and not wanting to find them.
If only I knew than what I know now.
Three years ago I received an invitation to come to a church where a friend of mine and her husband were being installed as the new lead Pastor’s. So I went. And it took a few months, but after wrestling with God, Stacy and I settled in. We had found our church home and a loving family. We had come to this new church because of a person. We stayed because of God.
The mistakes I made as a teen I don’t have to repeat. I know where my hope lies. It’s not in a man. I love my Pastor and his family. But my hope and salvation is in God, not in any man. So I can look at this in a different light than I could in the past.
Will there be tears, yes. Will there be sorrow, yes there will. As long as we are on this earth and have human relationships and care for other people, tears will be shed at parting. But there is also joy. Joy at the fact that I know a couple who is willing to lay it all on the line for God. Joy that I know they are submitting their lives to God’s plan and will. Joy at the example that I as a student who is learning what it means to be a Shepherd can draw on. And joy because I know that my salvation lies in Christ. A verse that was put on my heart a couple years ago was brought back to mind in the last week. Isaiah 61:10 as written in The Message:
I will sing for joy in God, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara. For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations.
Spes mea in deo. My hope is in God. And so is yours.
Resonant Love 