Change Always Comes

Last Monday, dropping my son off at school, I paused to look at a tree in the parking lot. I noticed that there were little buds all over the tree that will be blooming soon. According to my photos app, this particular tree is called a Chinese Pistache and gets planted as a street tree because it has beautiful foliage and doesn't require much maintenance.

I've been documenting this particular tree since the fall of 2021. Based on its height, I'm guessing the tree has been there longer than four years; I just hadn't really been paying attention to it. But something about its vibrant colors caught my eye in 2021, and I snapped a picture of the brilliant red and orange leaves.

It makes sense to me that I started noticing this tree that year. It was a year of transition for our family. Our oldest had gone off to college just a few months before the autumn colors engulfed the tree, and our youngest had begun his freshman year of high school. I had stepped away from my job as a children's pastor and also from my work as a teacher in our co-op. I was a few months into a year long sabbatical and my body was struggling to settle into these new rhythms.

The changing rhythms of that season invited me to slow down and caused me to linger just a moment longer, to really look at the world around me. I wasn't in a hurry. I didn't have anywhere I needed to be. I didn't have any work that needed to be done. I could just enjoy the tree.

Every year since, I have noticed this tree as it begins to bloom in the spring and bursts forth with color in the fall. I have watched it grow. It has gotten taller, more expansive. It leans a little more now than it used to. I've taken pictures standing under it, looking through the leaves at the sky, and standing next to it while the sun highlights the vibrant colors. Without even knowing it, this tree became a marker of time in my story.

Last week, as I got out of the car, I realized that this would be the last spring I would pull into this parking lot and see this tree with its buds ready to bloom. My youngest will graduate from high school two months from now, and this building, we've been coming to for nearly 15 years, will no longer be a part of our regular rhythm.

As I thought about this, I felt the sadness of a season ending and also joy for what is to come.

Life changes. It just does. No matter how much we resist or wish for it to stay the same. Sometimes, we have a heads-up that change is coming; sometimes, it comes out of nowhere.

I know when fall rolls around, there will be moments of sadness to not drive to this building or see these people every week. I know I'll feel sentimental that my role as a homeschool mom has ended. I'll miss the daily rhythms that have anchored us for two decades.

There is so much I will miss. And! There is so much I'm excited about.

I have learned to look at change differently. There were years, decades, where I dreaded it. I didn't want anything to change. Change meant having to let go, move on, grieve. It meant saying goodbye, learning new things, starting over. Change meant being out of control. All of that felt scary to me.

But back in 2021, during my sabbatical, God shifted something in me.

I was driving home one night on a highway with no lights. While driving, I could only see as far in front of me as my headlights were shining, and I felt in that moment the Holy Spirit showed me that the season I was in would be the same - I would only be able to see one step at a time.

I was longing for clarity about the next 5, even 10 years. What should I do with my time? I was so worried I'd miss the on-ramp to the next adventure, and then what? But these past four years of just seeing right in front of me, saying yes to the next right thing, not trying to figure out the grand plan, has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

It has changed me. Do I still have questions about what is next? You bet. Am I frantically trying to make a master plan? Nope.

Change always comes.

I am reminded by observing the tree that it knows what to do in every season - it knows when to bloom and when to rest. It was created to change. The changes make it stronger, protect it, and allow it to flourish.

Change does the same for us, too. 

~  Melissa