Brave Enough to Change

This post was originally published on The Road to Brave

The mist rolled in almost without warning, drifting in waves up over the hills and across the road. From my vantage point on a jutting overlook, I cuddled a little deeper into my sweatshirt and marveled at the beauty. 

 I can’t believe it came in so fast, I thought. One second it’s sunny and blue, the next it’s almost stormy…

I know how fast the weather can change in most mountain ranges, but it still surprises me sometimes. So too does each new season, something I can always see coming and yet am always caught off guard by. I recently read back through my last year of journal entries, and I kid you not, every few months I wrote, “[insert month or season] already? How did that happen?” It made me smile — but it also made me think. 

As I write this, it’s been quite a few weeks and a dramatically busy end of summer since my last post. Honestly, given the number of miles traveled and events/weddings attended, it’s not really surprising that the days have flown by so quickly — but even so, I confess I started a recent journal entry with, “September already? How did that happen?”

It seems like eventually we should stop saying this, that life should start slowing down at some point. But all of the adults I know who are a few years or many years older than me have much the opposite to say. “I’ll tell you what’ll happen,” one older woman told me recently with a laugh as I commented on how I’d blinked and my first year of marriage had gone by. “You’ll blink and twenty years will go by, and you’ll be wondering, How did that happen?”

Maybe it’s because we’re creatures made for eternity but bounded by time. Maybe the very fact that we marvel at the passing of seasons whispers to the fact that we were intended for something very different. Whatever it is, I recently found myself on a Skyline overlook in the Blue Ridge Mountains, thinking about time and change and the upcoming season. Far down below in the valley, the colors were still vibrantly green — the deep, almost dark green of late summer. But here higher up, the hills were blanketed in a thick carpet of trees with flashes of autumn beginning to show through. Change was coming. Autumn was beckoning. But down below, summer was still holding on tight. 

That’s how I feel, I thought. Like I want to hold onto this last season for another breath. I know autumn will be beautiful, and this next season of life will be beautiful. But I want to stay here a little while longer…

Superpowers like invisibility and extraordinary strength might be appealing, but if I could pick anything, I’d make time slow down. Moments become infinitely precious in retrospect as you realize that on this side of eternity, we’ll eventually hit a “goodbye”. The last time I left my grandparents’ home, waving out the car window and watching my precious Nana wave from the front door until we drove out of sight, I didn’t know it was the last time I’d be inside that house…ever. Before I returned again, my grandparents would move somewhat abruptly to an assisted living facility, where my Nana would pass away soon afterwards. The home-away-from-home I’d cherished since I was two would have an estate sale and then be sold before I could return. I’d find myself with memories, only — memories that I’d never make more of, memories that are now all the more precious because I can’t ever add to them. 

But I can’t. 

Slow it or stop it.

We can’t. 

Time passes, and seasons change, and we crane our necks and look back until our present becomes our past, carried along by a current we can’t stop. 

Maybe that’s melancholy. Maybe it’s not. It certainly makes me think deeply. Feel deeply, too.

But then it also puts a choice in front of us, a choice I’m facing even this autumn. Look back. Look forward. They both matter. How do I cherish the past while embracing the future? Grieve and rejoice? Live fully in the present, in light of where God has carried me in days gone by and where He’s leading me to in days to come? 

To be honest, I’m not sure how to do that well. I’m trying. Struggling. Succeeding. Failing. Trying again. Maybe someday I’ll figure it all out and write a bestseller. How to Become Totally Unconflicted About Life and Time, Emotionally or Otherwise.

(Hah.)

But until then, maybe it’s okay to keep on walking, keep on wondering, keep my hands in my Savior’s. To take deep breaths of summer’s final warm breezes while appreciating the crunch of the first autumn leaves beneath my feet. To see the goodness of God in each beautiful moment of this past season, and to know that He continues to be good to me. To think with gratitude on each priceless gift He has given, and to look with anticipation to the time to come. 

This week, may we be brave enough to change.