I hate change.

I hate change. There, I said it. If you want to know what I hate: I hate change. Hate it with a passion. After celebrating (and dealing with) graduation, mom's remarriage, moving, and adapting to a stepdad and stepfamily, I thought, with some humor, Oh, God's trying to teach me about change. This is cool. I can adapt to change. Everything is going fine.

But I guess I spoke too soon. God isn't about coasting through life or simply taking what you're given and merging into your present life. God is about change.

See, if I became a Christian and then spoke the same way, watched the same movies, listened to the same music, befriended the same people, and thought about life the same way as I did before Christ (or as non-Christians do), then has Christ made a difference in my life? Or am I simply the same as I was before I met Christ?

As Christians, we've got to be different. We must be different, so we reflect Christ instead of this world. We do this through our choices in media as well as our actions, words, and thoughts. And while we are choosing cleaner, Godlier choices in media and words, God is in the process of refining our thoughts and viewpoints and feelings. This whole, entire movement or shift in our lives is a big change! It's a change towards Godliness, an adjustment in the direction of Christ along the straight and narrow path. In theology, we call it Sanctification.

Isaiah 48:10 explains this by saying: "See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction." Whatever survives the 'furnace' is good and Godly, but it's a life-long process.

Okay, so back to the change in my life. I hate it. But God has a purpose for it. God's plan is that through the things I hate (like change), I will be refined. I will become more like Christ, and my life will conform to God instead of to this world.

Josh Wilson writes and sings about those uncomfortable, even painful moments in life that have a purpose like this:

Do you wonder why you have to
feel the things that hurt you,
if there's a God who loves you,
where is He now?

Maybe, there are things you can't see
and all those things are happening
to bring a better ending
some day, some how, you'll see, you'll see

Chorus
Would you dare, would you dare, to believe,
that you still have a reason to sing,
'cause the pain you've been feeling,
can't compare to the joy that's coming

So hold on, you got to wait for the light
press on, just fight the good fight
because the pain you've been feeling,
it's just the dark before the morning

My friend, you know how this all ends
and you know where you're going,
you just don't know how you get there
so just say a prayer.
And hold on, cause there's good for those who love God,
life is not a snapshot, it might take a little time,
but you'll see the bigger picture

Connecting

Ironically, the week before my first official Sunday at my new house, my old church is doing a series on connecting. The tag-line is "Life doesn't work well in isolation". Touche, church, touche.
Being alone hurts, everyone knows that. Sure, it may feel good to get away from everything once in a while, but humans were not designed to be alone all the time. That's why we have friends and family and spouses and roommates and churches.
And other than hanging with my mom and my brother all day long as we move stuff to our new house and train our dog to stay inside the new invisible fence and eat dinner with my stepdad, there hasn't been a lot of connecting going on. I haven't seen one of my best friends since the day after graduation, and the other since my mom's wedding about 3 weeks ago. Another good group of friends and I last got together on Memorial Day.
I love my friends. And while I may miss them, I have a million things to do with the move and I just haven't had time to see them yet. Although, I am get-together with a good friend tomorrow, so that's okay.

But what about church? I have this summer to deal with. Eight Sundays until I go to college.
There are many churches in my new town I could visit, and I think I will. On one hand, I feel guilty for leaving my old church. The problem is that I don't want to drive 45 minutes to church every week. So maybe it's time to move on. Moving and moving on.
There's a church at the college I'm attending that I'll visit and probably attend when I go to college.
I don't want to feel upset that I'm leaving my old church and visiting new ones. I want to be able to find connections wherever I am. And I'll be praying for God to help me establish those.

In Between

My brother and I are hanging out at my grandma's house waiting for my mom to drive from our old house to our new house (my step-dad's house). We're going to meet her there.

It's kind of an awkward feeling right now. I feel like I'm being shuffled around, like I'm in between houses.

When my grandfather died four years ago, my mom, grandma, and I had seen his body several times, including in the hospital (both of them except me) and at the funeral home after they had prepared his body. It was a means of closure for us, to experience and see his body after his soul had already risen. My younger brother, on the other hand, hadn't been with us those times. It wasn't until later, when we were eating the "family supper", that he complained of his stomach hurting and he wouldn't eat anymore. He was tired of waiting for closure.

I know it's a morbid example, but I feel a bit like that. I'm tired of waiting for the "wedding phase" to be over. I want to go ahead and move into my new house. I want to get all my stuff together and step into my new life. I want it to be over.

I don't know how it will feel to walk into my step-dad's house as his step-daughter instead of his girlfriend's daughter. I don't know how it will feel to move my things into his oldest daughter's former room. I don't know how it will feel to wake up in that room and not know the "code" for things in his house, or the way things are done in the morning or during the day or at bedtime.

But I'm ready to find out.

And I do know that when he said "I Do", he accepted not only my mom but also my brother and also me. And I know that I'm not too old to have a man call himself my "step-dad" and show me how a man should treat his children and his wife. Yes, it's scary. But I'm ready for it. I'm tired of waiting.

Ready

I was looking over a gift a friend made for me. It was collage of magazine pictures, drawings, and letters. She had used various letters from magazines to spell out words as well as cutting out certain words.

In the middle of the collage, sloping up from left to right, in white letters on a blue background, was the word "ready". It was the third largest word on the page, after "faith" and "real".

And as I looked at it, I thought, "ready"? Am I really ready? Am I ready for life, ready for these changes in my life, ready for the complications surrounding me? Life is changing very, very fast and I feel like it's rushing by me so quickly I can hear it.

Am I ready for this?

I don't know. I don't know if I could ever be ready. Even if it took a million years. On one hand, that sounds very scary, but on the other, I think it's a good thing. How can we learn if we never step outside of our safety boxes?

Yeah, I can prepare for these changes. I can talk to people who've been there, I can organize my things and pack up for the move. I can talk to people at my college, decide what I need to take, plan my schedule and hit the road. But I'll never be completely ready. I need to grow!