The Aftermath of Change in your Life

This picture was taken while I was pregnant with my youngest. We held the shoes to show we were waiting and anticipating his arrival. Both girls had worn those sneakers as babies. Being pregnant with my son was a hard change. I was 37 and we weren’t planning on having any more children. I was also on medicine that should have prevented me from having any more children. Needless to say God had other plans and we had my son. I can remember many moments of my life when everything changed. Have you had moments like that in your life? Being married for me was probably the first but beside my back injury finding out I was pregnant with our third child definitely fits. These moments always mark and end of something, for me having a son was an end to only having daughters. It was an end to a family of four. It was bottles and diapers all over again when we had just rid the house of those things.

In her book Determined, Heather M. Dixon talks about what happens after something ends is change accompanied by chaos. I think that change, confusion and chaos can cause anxiety and depression for many of us. When we don’t recognize that this change is part of God’s plan or even if we do recognize it and don’t like it. We can struggle with anger, anxiety and depression. When I was first learning how to drive after my back injury and could only go about 15 minutes at a time I was heartbroken wishing things would go back to the way they were. I felt that this change was unjust, undeserving and wrong. I wanted to be healed completely. I wanted to go back in time and make different decisions.

But God did not supply me with a suped-up Delorean nor has he healed me completely yet. But he has blessed me beyond measure and provided for me in every way. Even in my son things from formula to clothes to shoes were supplied and still are. When God creates a change in your life he has a plan and purpose for it. He will provide for it and he will grow you in it.

Jesus had moments when change occurred and nothing was the same again. Hopefully for many people once you decide to be baptized things are not the same again. I know for me it was the beginning of a new life with Jesus. It was not the same for Jesus anymore either. Luke Chapter 3 gives the account of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. it says in Luke 3:21 that Jesus was also baptized and “While he was praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, My Beloved, in You I am well-pleased and delighted.”

That was a moment where change occurred. Those present heard a God himself proclaim that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. This also marked the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. He was no longer a carpenter. Off into the the wildness he went for 40 days, re-emerging as the rabbi and savior of the world.

It is comforting to know that Jesus went through change and the chaos of it too. It’s hard when your in the middle to see the goodness of it. It’s easy to react to the chaos around you with fear, anger, and frustration. But know that this is not a surprise to God and He already planned for your victory in it a long time ago.

It’s also not uncommon after a change to sit in the wilderness of life for a while. For me that is a time of searching for answers. It’s a time of growing your faith in God so that when you are tempted to be depressed or anxious you can answer it with the assurance of who you are in Christ. Sometimes that was the whole point of the change. For things to shift to a place where you can grow and depend on God.

So when change occurs in your life, and it will, your actually being given an opportunity to grow. The kind of growth God wants in us can be painful but it’s necessary to keep moving forward through the chaos to the other side, instead of staying in it.