Changes

Dear Friends,

Today, as I am writing this on Wednesday, I’m preparing to take Brennan, our oldest, to the airport and fly him 1,000 miles away, back down to college in Florida (Eckered College in St. Petersburg).  And I’m arguably having a more difficult time this year than last year.  Maybe that’s because last year we were embarking on a (quick, but looong) drive down to drop him off in-person, and there was at least a little excitement to drop him off, see his dorm and get him set up.

Today… we’ll just deliver him and some suitcases to Pittsburgh International Airport and… wave goodbye.

I said it last year, but until getting to this stage in life, I hadn’t really understood how difficult it was to say that goodbye.

While I’m sure Brennan has some sadness about leaving, it is in no way comparable to the joy and excitement he has for returning to college, seeing his… friends… and to the place that he is feeling more and more at home at.  And so I’m forced to check myself.  While it’s good and healthy for me to express my grief over his leaving, for his sake, and for mine, I have to also look at the joy and excitement in him, and recognize that there is something really good that God is doing in his life as he steps out into this new adventure.

I know there are lots of you in similar situations – sending kids off to college, or back to college – or to High School or Middle School or Kindergarten or Preschool or Daycare for the first time.  Each one of these milestones carries with it both a grief and an excitement – sometimes both for everyone at the same time.  And there are a whole host of other transitions and changes we experience throughout our lives that fit this bill as well.  The challenge we face is to be able see them, not just through our own eyes, but through the eyes of faith, through the eyes of the loving God who is at work in them, and in us.

All change is difficult.  Even when we like it, when we need it, we still feel the discomfort of it.  But if we can recognize the hand of God at work in and amidst the changes we face, and trust that in and through it all, God is… making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland… then I think we will be so much more able to navigate those changes – and help others too!

No matter what changes you face this Fall – I bless you to know the gracious God, who in Jesus Christ is working in and through them to transform you more and more into his likeness.

Welcoming You to Grow in Jesus, one change at a time,

Pastor Don