Try It...You'll Like It

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Thursday Thought.

 In the last couple of weeks, it has been brought home to me yet again that life is fluid.  Things change.  Circumstances change.  Friends and friendships change.  People change.  Things and people come and go, into and out of one’s life.  Just when I am beginning to feel somewhat comfortable with things the way they are, something happens to upset that comfort, and I have to get used to a new normal of some kind.

 You know what I’m talking about.  The grand daughter who was five years old just a few weeks ago is now sixteen going on twenty five.  Your best friends from high school days not that long ago are gone, having passed away at relatively young ages.  Someone dear to you in your church family has developed an aggressive form of cancer and is undergoing treatment that may well not work.  That young couple you know who married what seems just a few days ago…that young couple is in the middle of shepherding kids through the teen years.  The once-in-a-lifetime trip you went on with your spouse is now a distant, albeit pleasant memory.  Your next door neighbor…the one you have been sort of looking after due to his advanced age and precarious medical condition…he has died and someone else is living in the house now.

 And even yourself…you have changed.  You may be taking medication now for things you didn’t even think about years ago.  You have more specialist physicians in your stable of health care people than you used to have.  You may now have a cardiologist, a nephrologist, a dermatologist, pulmonologist, neurologist, or some other “ologist” specialty that you see regularly now, besides your primary provider.  It’s to the point that you have to use your phone’s calendar to keep track of all the appointments.

 And that calendar is handy for things besides medical appointments.  Because you now can’t rely on your brain to recall other appointments and things you need to do.  So now you put those things in your calendar, with reminders popping up on your screen, in your email, and in your texts.

 And when you look in the mirror in the morning, you see someone you haven’t seen before.  This person is older than I remember.  There’s a double chin right there.  And rogue eyebrow hairs are sprouting in helter-skelter fashion.  It’s a double blow when, as you’re looking in the mirror you note that you’ll never be any younger than you are now.

 OK.  Enough of the negativity.  You long ago have gotten the point about change.  Yes.  As long as there is the passage of time, there will be change.  It just comes with the territory.  But change can be a bright spot in an otherwise ordinary day.  After all, it’s change that blows away the clouds and allows the sun to shine after days of dreary, overcast skies.  It’s change that moves the youngest grandkid out of diapers and into continence.  It’s change that let’s you walk your daughter down the aisle as she marries her sweetie.  It’s change that prompts you to try that new restaurant across town.  It’s change that causes others to listen to your wisdom rather than dismiss you for your youth and inexperience.  And it’s change that mellows your heart, softening it to accept and eventually embrace the words of Jesus telling us to forgive others…to love our God and our neighbor and treat others as we would like to be treated.

 Aahh.  So maybe that’s the key.  Maybe that’s the thing that will let us embrace change instead of fearing it.  Maybe our attitudes toward God and others will color how we think of and deal with those inevitable changes which result in losing friends, needing brain reminders, and seeing an old person in the mirror in the morning.

 Loving God, loving those who for whatever reason and for however long or short of a time come into our lives, forgiving others and treating others as we would want to be treated…with dignity and respect…maybe it is these things which enable us to better accept and yes, even embrace the changing nature of life and living.

 So, as the waiter in the restaurant told the diner “Try it…you’ll like it” in the old Alka Seltzer commercial, what do you have to lose?  If you’re being weighed down by all of the change that is coming your way, make one more change…in your heart.  Loving God, loving your neighbor, and treating others with dignity and respect won’t change things overnight.  But you’ll be glad that you tried it…I think you’ll like what it does for you.

 Blessings,