1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
CHANGE
CHANGE
The only thing that is constant and consistent in life is CHANGE. From the time that we exit our mothers' womb until the time that our bodies decompose and return to dust, our existence is fraught with transitions.
GOD in his gracious wisdom renders us clues, consistently, even before we can babble our first identifiable utterances, that CHANGE is an essential dimension of our humanity and spirituality. While there are numerous reasons why the infant child cries, one of those reasons is undoubtedly a consequence of change.
Such a significant dimension of our lives is driven via the acquisition of those things which appear to guarantee certainty commensurate with the anticipated hope that those things that time brings to fruition will provide for us a permanency plan. Alarmed by the presence of our transitory existence and unintended and unanticipated results, we struggle, we experience emotional overload, we experience trauma drama, we shut down and/or shut off, we wear masks that give others the false impression that all is well in our world when in actuality it is falling to pieces, we deny the grace and beauty of aging, and we embrace a philosophy of escapism that affirms what we desire to see, yet denies the sanctity of change! We lament, for we long for things to be as they once were. In essence, we do not welcome nor like change!
However, in order that we might embrace the glorious gift of change, we must understand that our ability to become at one with CHANGE is a dichotomous invitation in that it impacts us in a twofold manner. CHANGE impacts us in the following two ways: 1) Losses and 2) Gains!
When we look into the window of the fairy Tale of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, we are given a kitchen window view of the potency, breadth, and scope of change and its power to incite and to exacerbate anxiety, envy, fear, malfeasance, and self-destruction when it is fueled by resistance. The stepmother in this narrative attempted to keep her beauty static and could not fathom the thought that her external beauty waned in comparison to that of her stepdaughter, Snow White. Additionally, the stepmother was unable to grieve the loss of that which was and to wait in anticipation of the gains that would be gift via the sanctity of change due to the consequences of her own malignant narcissism [plainly stated, vanity]. She did not understand that beauty originates from the inside out; a gift that the time of circumstances offers us when our regiment in imbued with regular doses of love, forgiveness, atonement, spirituality, faith, community, wisdom, rest, and play.
While we are cognizant that the focal point of the narrative identifies Snow White as the three-dimensional charater and victim [which is the case], our ability to be empathic towards the difficulties of others enables us to have compassion on the stepmother and in having done so, we see that the stepmother is a victim of herself.
Consequently, because we allow ourselves to become intimate with the stepmother's suffering, we are able to embrace a powerful lesson that she inadvertently offers us; i.e., CHANGE and experience renewal or RESIST CHANGE and experience stagnation. As we are aware, the queen's inability to accept CHANGE as a gift of the human condition, resulted in her own psychoemotional, psychological, physiological, and psychospiritual self-destruction.
Will you allow your resistance to CHANGE to destroy you or those around you?
Will you offer your grief as an offering to be burned as sweet incense in the presence of a loving and compassionate GOD?
Will you trust GOD to not only walk with you through the CHANGE, but to be present on the other side of it waiting to embrace you in safety, solace, love, and completeness?
The text of Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 clearly reinforces the message that there is a season for everything and a time to every purpose of the sun. God reminds of this with the onslaught of the season of Autumn, which brings the entity of change via the changing of the seasons: 1] Losses - plants and animal life outdoors die in preparation for the new cycle of life and 2] Gains - Autumn, the season of Harvest, is at hand and the earth ushers humanity a plethora of a beautiful and nutritious bounty that will sustain us through the times ahead! God does make provisions for us!
Go on, it is right there for you! Step into that wondrous glorious gift of CHANGE that is waiting to liberate and bless you!
THANK GOD FOR THE GLORIOUS GIFT OF CHANGE!
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K.Mason (c) 2005
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