For most of us, the school year has ended. We are headed into summer break, for the first time or the last, or we are recent graduates ready to embrace the world. A lot has changed and is going to change, no matter where you are on the spectrum of life.
Change can be so many things—scary, intimidating, unknown. Things come and go, seasons come and go, people come and go. While change is inevitable, it can also be good, healthy and much needed, even when it doesn’t look or feel like it is.
I don’t know about you, but I have been witnessing a lot of change recently, and not just in my own life. I look back on the school year and am astonished by just how much has changed. Are they still friends? Are they still dating? They still go here?! What could have been? I guess it's comforting knowing I'm not the only one changing. And while we are still the same and true to our core, we have changed even if only slightly, having learned new lessons along the way.
Now don't get me wrong, change is not always easy, and neither is accepting it.
Personally, the change going on in my life has been and is going to be, very challenging. Currently, I am living on my own this summer and working full-time, getting a taste of what life after college will be like. For the future, I am graduating a semester early this December, without knowing what the heck I’m doing after school (so please stop asking). Change is a strange known unknown. We know it is coming, but we don't know how it will unfold.
But rather than cowering and allowing my anxiety to get the best of me yet again, I am learning to embrace the change, rather than fight it. Instead of being intimidated by living alone, I am eager to see how I will become even more independent. I’m not terrified of limitless possibilities after graduation, I look forward to it with excitement, knowing the world is my oyster.
I am also learning the parts of my life in which I am allowed to have more of a guiding hand, and the parts in which I don’t have any say whatsoever. No matter the circumstance, I am learning to accept all of it. And ultimately, we do not have control over our lives. We might be able to control certain aspects, but in its entirety, we don’t because God does. However, we can control how we will respond.
So rather than fight change, embrace it. Gracefully accept and willingly encourage the growth that will inevitably happen. Embrace the change that is coming. Embrace what you will learn. Embrace the person you are going to become.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: Ecclesiastes 3:1.