I recently saw an old friend of mine when I went back to Nashville, Tennessee. I lived there for nearly six years and loved it but God eventually moved me on to Kentucky. Many people often say they have roots in a particular area, state, country...I do not. My roots ground me to the Lord and to my family. I have moved 37 times thus far in my life and have few places I can say seem like home to me. Home here on earth to me is where ever my family is and where ever it is that God plants me for the time being. While being back in Nashville for a few days was not like 'going home', it was still comfortable and familiar...something that put a smile on my face. I love to drive around and see what's changed and what's still the same. My friend is a mix of both. She and I both looked very similar to what we did years ago...younger even...? Okay, no! But yet we had both changed in some fairly dramatic ways.
One thing that struck me square in the face as I sat and enjoyed her company was just how much she had changed emotionally and spiritually. Her life was vastly different than it had been when I lived there. She said the same thing about me. Not only were our choices, our priorities and our work different, but we were both in different places emotionally and spiritually than we had been years ago when we knew each other well. The amazing thing to both of us was that we discovered that the two of us had so very much in common! Now, trust me when I say that years ago we were two very different people...different from each other with very little in common. We cared about each other and enjoyed each other's friendship but I always knew that our interests and viewpoints rarely matched up with one another. But now, ten years after having lived in Nashville, we realized that we could be sympathetic towards one another in a way that only someone who has walked in similar shoes, on a similar path, is able to do.
Something many of us do not think about is the fact that people do change. We remember someone as they were without taking into account the fact that life happens. Pain happens. Love happens. Loss happens. Mistakes are made and healing can occur. All of these things mold and shape who we are. And if we follow our Heavenly Father to, He will be the one who molds and shapes, loves and forgives, pushes and guides. When this happens, changes are made from the inside out. These are the very kinds of changes I saw in my dear friend, as well as the kinds of changes I know have happened within myself over the past ten years.
Too many times I hear people say "People never change." I hear talk show hosts, radio jockeys, armchair psychiatrists and well-meaning people go on and on about how people never change. Can I just say an emphatic - bull. People DO change. We have no choice but to change. Those who profess differently live with blinders on. As life happens, our brains, our emotions, our spirits react. How we then respond to these things in life and whether or not we choose to allow our changes to be made in the Lord or outside of Him determines whether or not the changes will be eternal, quality, beautiful and pleasing unto Him - but changes still happen nonetheless. We don't give others enough credit for having the ability to change but most of us would admit that we are quite different creatures ourselves than we were just two years ago or five years ago. And again, we still give little credit to those around us for having the ability to change as well. I believe and have seen whole-heartedly for myself that one reason relationships fail are not because people 'never change' but rather because people DO change and they do grow. Usually one person progresses and moves forward while the other stands still. Or one moves slower and in a different direction than the other. Standing still in itself is also a change, is it not? If you were once a moving being, acting, growing forward with your mate or your friend and then you halt or stand still, is that not also a change? Change happens...we must open our eyes to it in others and in ourselves.
Having seen my friend made me realize that I sometimes wear an old set of glasses; glasses that only let me see things from the past and from the world. I wonder how often I have seen one of my brothers or sisters in Christ and thought "Oh, they're the same as usual... They'll never change." I have thought this before and steered clear of certain people because I cared not to get involved in their lives because of who they were, how they acted in the past. But I didn’t ask myself if perhaps they had changed. Am I not greatly at fault and flat out ignoring another child of God if I don't at times go check the waters to see if they are still murky or perhaps they have calmed down? Should I check to see if a brother or sister in Christ is covered in moss from standing still? Sometimes, remember, we are called to stand still, to be still. Perhaps at those still moments healing is taking place and when that other person then starts to grow and move forward, he or she will begin to be a new creation in Christ, just as I became. Just as my friend became - with new priorities, a new outlook, renewed love for God and a new sense of self-worth from having our identities in Him rather than in the world.
I pray as you go out today that you look at others through the eyes of Christ and not through glasses that see only the world's point of view. I pray that you can step back and look at others as Christ looks at you - as a being who is poised to change and able to do so - then be ready to be an encourager for those who are changing and for those who have changed.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17
~ Karen
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