Like an unopened present
By Jessica Brodie
This month ushers in a huge change in my personal life. My oldest child, Cameron, has just moved out of the house to start college. He’s now a freshman at Winthrop University, majoring in finance.
It’s been a tough summer as a mom, wrapping my mind and my heart around the transition we are now living into. It’s a good change, this present season, but it’s still an adjustment. We’re all getting used to new routines and new rhythms in our home, and some days our emotions feel like they’re all over the place.
It can be this way in the life of the church, too. Right now is a season of change in the annual conference as our beloved Bishop L. Jonathan Holston, who has been our episcopal leader for the last 12 years, moves away to lead the Alabama-Panhandle Conference. We’re getting a new bishop, Bishop Leonard Fairley, along with his wife, Dawn. (Read Bishop Fairley’s introductory column on “Holy Anticipation,” this page.)
As with the change in my own household, this too is a good change, a natural step in the process. Things will be different, with new rhythms and routines and likely new ministries to get used to, but still—it’s a positive.
Yet for many of us, change can be scary. Many times we fear what we do not know. Perhaps we think we prefer the existing way or the old way simply because we know it.
Yet change exists for us every day, in every moment. As our earth rotates around the sun, day turns to night and then day again. Seasons change from hot to warm to cool, then cold and back again.
So, too, our lives change. Our patterns change. Our leaders and the way we operate change.
With any change, I often find myself growing excited. As a kid, I remember seeing presents beneath the tree on Christmas morning, and my heart would thrum in curiosity and excitement about what was within the packages. I think I enjoyed that anticipation as much as the presents themselves!
When it comes to change, I often experience that same thrum of curiosity. Like an unopened present beneath the tree, I don’t know what’s ahead. I don’t know the plans God has for me or my life, for my loved ones or my church.
But I know God has something really wonderful in store, both for God’s glory and my own good.
Perhaps your church got a new pastor this year, or your family is going through a change like mine is. Perhaps another change going on in your life, something that leaves you uncertain and unsteady.
Instead of choosing to see that uncertainty through a lens of fear, what if you were to choose to see that uncertainty a bit like an unopened gift on Christmas morning. You have faith it will be good—you just don’t know yet what it is.
Together, as God’s people, we have so many exciting things to look forward to … in our lives, in our church, and as we work bring about heaven on earth as God’s people.
Amen and amen.