Change in the Air

I was walking back to my residence hall the other night.  The weather was warm, but a cool breeze was in the air, moving around the yellow and red leaves and swirling them around.  I turned to my friend and said, "There is change in the air" and followed that statement up with, "I need to go write."  Because that's how I operate.  I'm a little odd, but sometimes I am touched with inspiration and there's nothing I can do but go write about life.  So here I am.

I hate change.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  Ask anyone who knows me well.  I am a sentimental person anyways, but change just derails me.  Change can start an emotional roller coaster that I only want to get off of, and I hate it.  I'm anxiety-prone.  I am a worrier.  I like to have things planned out for days, weeks, and months in advance, and change makes things uncertain.  Even the seasons unnerve me.  I sit outside on gorgeous fall and spring days and there is just this uncertainty in the pit of my stomach from the knowledge that things are changing that is unsettling.  Call me crazy.  Because I probably am.

Seemingly unrelated to the fact that I hate change is another fun fact about me...I love nature.  Particularly the sky.  Once again, anyone who knows me well or follows me on social media probably knows this thanks to my excessive pictures of the sky.  I am constantly looking up at the trees, at the mountains, at the sky, in wonder.

But those aren't unrelated facts.

Because here's what I've realized over the last year or so--God uses the world he created to reveal himself and His plans.  See, here's the funny thing.  The most beautiful things in nature are things that are in a season of change.  My very favorite things are fall leaves, and sunrises and sunsets.

The leaves, so vibrant in color, so alive...are dying.  Those gorgeous trees are about to go into a dark season, but there is beauty in that change.  And the trees aren't worried.  Matthew 6:25-27 talks about not worrying and speaks about how the birds don't worry...God provides.  The trees don't worry either.  God always brings back their beauty in the spring.  So, why on earth wouldn't we trust Him?  Change is natural.  It's a part of a cycle of beauty.

And then my favorite...the sky.  I am the type of person who literally stops what they are doing to go sit outside and just watch the sunset.  I did this all the time senior year.  And if I'm awake when the sun is rising, I'm watching it too.  Those sunrises and sunsets are beautiful because they are changing.  And you know what's even more intriguing???  Those sunsets and sunrises are even more beautiful  when there are clouds...those dark things in life. Change is beautiful. Life is beautiful.


A year ago I was overwhelmed with life and started staring at the sky as a way to remind myself of God's overwhelming peace. And then references to sunrises and sunsets starting popping up everywhere in my life. That was no coincidence. It was a reminder that if God can make something as vast as the sky that beautiful, then certainly he can do the same with my overwhelmed life. And He does make my life beautiful. Every day. Every way.