Never and Always

Because it's the new year I decided to write a post on an awful, inconvenient, unpredictable, intimidating word called…CHANGE.

Some changes are exciting like when the leaves change color in the fall or when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

Most changes however, aren't as welcomed, simple or beautiful as those especially when they affect us directly. 

Change has not only been on my mind since the start of 2015 but has felt like the theme of my whole last year.

A year ago I made the decision to move across the country alone to Orlando, Florida as part of the Disney Internship Program.  That in itself was a life changing experience but it wasn’t until I got back that I realized how fast life passes.

Once I returned, everything was different. I was only gone six months but in the college world of Provo, Utah that can translate in to a lifetime of changes.

When I got back I had best friends engaged, married, left on missions, or moved away.  My world seemed to have done a back flip and turned inside out.  The worst part was I didn’t know what to think or do about it.

I missed so much of what used to be and I tried to be optimistic about the future but I felt like I was betraying my old life if I was content with starting a new chapter.

I remember one specific day all these feelings resulted with a phone call in tears to my mom.  She listened sympathetically and then said something that I haven’t forgotten.  “ Well honey, the one thing in life that doesn’t change…is change.”

I repeated that line in my head over and over again.

It was the most inconvenient truth I’ve ever heard.

It was something I didn’t particularly want to hear but once I did I realized something, life is about change and there is no way around it.

I guess I already knew this but it seemed impossible to grasp.  I had this mistaken belief that after each time a change occurred in my life, I was exempt from any other changes in the future.

Instead, right when I get comfortable, my world starts shaking and this happens over and OVER again. It's a frightening concept I have always struggled with.

Children grow up, families move, buildings get torn down, loved ones pass away; nothing ever has or ever will stay the same. Is there anything we can count on?

The scriptures remind us there is ONE thing that is infinite, something that is unlike the rest and that is our Father in Heaven. 

Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change.”
Finally, something we can rely on and turn to.

It might seem like a concept we already know, but I feel like we forget this too often, especially in times of change and uncertainty.
D&C 3:2 says "For God...neither doth he vary."
These versus mean that even if you are across the world, your friends change, or you loose your health and your life becomes unrecognizable, you can still pray to the SAME God who has always loved you and always will. 

Change will NEVER change but God will ALWAYS stay the same.

His love, presence, and eternal truths are endless, and he is also a constant that allows us to use change for our own good. 

However, if you are anything like me, you're blinded when it comes to seeing the bigger picture.

It reminds me of a visual analogy C.S Lewis shares:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace”

So what aspects of our lives is our Father in Heaven reconstructing?  Like I mentioned, I’ve had quite a bit of reconstructing in my life lately but it helps to remember God designed our lives and each of us to be ever changing.  Although our vision is limited to the exquisiteness of it all, Gods constructions turn our lives into palaces.

So maybe the changes we undertake aren’t as easy as watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly but maybe they ARE just as beautiful.

Maybe my mom was right, nothing ever stays the same but there is  one exception. 

He is our Father in Heaven and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I may not know what is ahead for you or for me but I do know

God will ALWAYS be there and he will ALWAYS love us.

That my friends, will never EVER change.

Xoxo

Kate