When Change is Beautiful

Unlike a lot of people in the world today, I’m really not the best person to adapt to change. While some may revel in the various shifts in their lives day by day, I find myself dreading to see what exactly will change from my schedule. It’s not like I enjoy routine – far from it. Too much of a boxed life will probably make me end up screaming my head off and running away to the opposite direction. It’s just that, sometimes, I don’t like the nice clean schedule in my head go awry for something I totally did not expect to happen. Just when you think you’ve got a contingency for every little eventuality you could think of planned and set up already, along comes a circumstance that is so out there that the possibility of it happening is probably one in a million chances, and voila, it is the millionth chance! The unexpected always happens.

These past months, I’ve seen so many changes happen: a lot of them good, but the not-so-good ones also cannot be avoided. It’s quite funny how you can actually think you’ve got everything all figured out only to have everything blow up in your face. You take for granted things that you assume will remain constant forever, only to see that it is dynamic, and it will change in the exact moment you expected it to be still. The only constant thing is change. How true can it get? One can live an extremely paranoid life if all one does is to expect just what exactly will change. The amazing thing is that God did not make us that way. For sure, we might become just a bit jumpy when something unfamiliar happens, but at least we don’t scream hysterically when something shifts. We adjust to what’s happening. Grudgingly sometimes, out of no other choice, perhaps, but we do go with what is taking place. In effect, as the world changes, so do we change. So should we change. We’re not meant to be the exact same persons as we were a year ago, heck, even a day ago. We might not notice that we are, but we do. No one can step in the same river twice. How can that happen, when the person stepping and the river itself have changed in the interval?

I’ve thought about why people seem so averse to changes. I guess it’s primarily the disturbance it causes in the neat little world we have knitted ourselves, and that it threatens to unravel all that we have worked hard on. Good or bad, it endangers the safe little bubble we made. It puts us in danger of being thrust from our security, our comfort zones, into somewhere unfamiliar. For those who are like me who want to dissect the details of the situation they are in (read: overanalyzing), this is particularly difficult. Before we jump into something, we would want to understand every nook and cranny, turn the situation upside-down and inside-out, and visualize the situation and imagine all possible scenarios before making a decision. Yet sometimes, we don’t have the luxury of checking it out before we are thrust into it. We only find ourselves analyzing it only after it has occurred. Doesn’t beat examining it beforehand, but at least it’s better than nothing, right?

Recently, I’ve been experiencing a lot of changes. Though some are internal, most are from external sources that still affect my system. Certainly, a lot of it is good, but all are really unexpected. Sometimes, I’d find myself grinning bemusedly over what just happened, not certain what exactly occurred, but being inanely pleased about it. God has been so good to me, for always listening and being there when I need Him. Just recently, I got amazed upon seeing just how differently He has changed my perspective. I’d see the things going on around me as being willed by Him to happen, to help me grow as a person, to teach me lessons in life, to enjoy His love and devotion. I’d see little miracles happen; things that I did not expect would occur in the next ten million years would materialize before my very eyes. A lot of beautiful things have been happening, I won’t deny that. Yet what I also cannot deny is the fact that maybe, just maybe, God allowed those things to happen, but He does not will for a person to have something related to that, or at least, not yet. Maybe He allowed that as a preparation for something even more beautiful, but in our haste to get what we want, we end up preempting Him. In effect, we grab the blanket even before it has been offered to us. Maybe the Lord allowed it to happen for us to learn and to prepare for what He has in store for us. Maybe it’s a test that He’s allowed to happen, to see whether, when offered something really tempting, we’d forsake our devotion to Him for something that gives us probably only a quick fix. He says in Matthew 6:33. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these will be given to you.” The message can also be found in Psalm 37:4: “Delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desire.” What He is saying is that He should always be first above everything else. When change happens in our lives, we should not limit ourselves to seeing it in a limited sense; instead, we look beyond, to the horizon, that God brought us there in that exact time and place for a reason, and we can choose to learn from it, or just perceive it as the world perceives it: as something isolated from everything else. That is why change can be beautiful, when we know that it has been brought by Someone who desires what is best for us and loves us unconditionally. It’s always Him first. The verses were constructed that way for a reason. Furthermore, Ecclesiastes 3:1 says that there is an appointed time for everything. When something happens in our lives, we can’t go and second-guess what the Lord wants for us. What I truly believe in is that everything happens for a reason. What is indispensable in that equation is that everything happens in a certain time, and in a certain place, for a reason. It is not by mere accident that we find ourselves in the situation we are placed in. There is a purpose for that, and I pray that we always find that purpose. There is a right time and a right place for something right. If God really wants something to happen in our lives, then He will make a way for that to happen, and no force can take that away. It is in our response to that situation that our faith and devotion can be seen.


I hear you whisper
Calling out my name
I turn and search for you
Your presence is the only thing I desire

Words are meaningless
Circumstances but a mere memory
What I treasure is time with you
And no one can take that away from us

Every moment I spend with you is bliss
Yet I find myself looking for more
I thirst for you, long to hear your voice
Home is where you are

The more I come to know you
The more I am drawn to know you more
What I know about you is never enough
But I am sure that everything about you is simply beautiful

The world is filled with uncertainty
Pain and suffering lurk in every corner
But I know where comfort from all the anguish lies
Tucked in the cradle of your loving arms

Life is but a breath
But I would spend my first or last on you
A million years I will give up
For even just a single day spent with you