All Change…

18/10/09 | Posted by Poppy

I've gone back to college after a long break and it is tough right now. The change to my routine as I try and study is really hard. I thought I was good with change but apparently not and the emotional trauma of buying a new pencil case had to be seen to be believed. Why is change so hard?

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It is a whole 25 years since I last studied. I am older. I have just bought reading glasses as my arms are getting too short to read books late at night. I certainly don’t have the stamina for all the all night study I used to do. I end up being less than civil to my work colleagues in the morning which really isn’t fair and I probably need to buy them cake to make up for being grumpy. I am really feeling my age at the moment I keep forgetting things, which may be the menopause, or it might just be I’m trying to do too many things. I have realised that I am mortal and aging and that is a tough lesson to learn.

Even when I do get down to some study it is all different to how it was back at university. Then I had time to concentrate. Now I get to grab half an hour before the kids get up for school or twenty minutes whilst our dinner is cooking. We have already had some study related cooking disasters as I get involved in a book and forget to check that the fishfingers haven’t burnt. My eldest son is requesting cooking lessons, so maybe that will be a way of coping if he can take some of the responsibility for making sure dinner isn’t burnt and crispy.

Although the older face in the mirror is a shock and the lack of concentration - oh look shiny - is a struggle perhaps the hardest thing though is the change to my routines. All them seem to be up in the air and there is no certainty anymore. I used to have life fairly well sorted in terms of getting done what needed to be done and leaving time for myself and my husband and the family. Now I’m running to stay still and making it up as I go along. This feels profoundly uncomfortable. I have found myself doing jobs at work that involve creating order out of chaos in the small hope that it might make me feel better. It doesn’t but my files are tidier than they have ever been!

How does any of this relate to the person of Jesus? Well Jesus was about change. About a different way of being with God. The Old Testament is full of rules about how to live a good and Godly life. But Jesus changed all that and suddenly a good life was not just following the rules. Now it involved a relationship with God through him.

Unlike rules, relationships are two way. They involve giving of the something of ourselves and then being vulnerable and open to change as the other person in the relationship influences us. That can be scary and it is so much easier to stay unchanged inside our boxes or comfort zones. To stay where we are is safe. Maybe that is good for some times of life when we need to recover from hurt or take some time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going. For a whole life it seems that the only constant is change if we dare to love.

So as a result of my back to college experience I’m learning allot about myself and allot about how hard change is. I’m not as open to the new as I thought I was and I’m going to be kinder in future to those who find any change tough and remember that any new venture or new life direction is full of the unexpected and that it can be exciting and challenging as well as terrifying.

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