if You would shine Your love down here...make our hearts as perfect as new...

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life...

- a. cohen

back in early june i knew change was coming; it was this ominous cloud that hung over everything i did. i thought about it constantly - the what ifs and i don't knows and the this is the last time we'll get to [fill in the blank]. and now, i'm almost on the other side, the side where i get used to how different life looks when everything changes. and hopefully soon life as it is will seem "normal," whatever that means. and then, i'm sure, it will begin to change again.

i am a walking paradox - i love new people and new places and new experiences for myself, but when i'm done with all that and ready to rest and find some stability for a season i expect my world to look the same as it did before. it never does. and selfishly, i hope that the people in my life don't move or change. i'm the one who's 'supposed' to do the leaving. unfair, i know.

in the midst of change i find myself trying desperately to hold on to what i can while attempting not to control things. easier said than done, right?

one day maybe i will embrace change instead of resisting it. i don't want the constants in my life to be about location or circumstance, and instead be about maintaining relationships across the country or even across an ocean all the while enjoying the here and now. it's the balance that i have difficulty with.

since i moved to new york, i find myself saying "it's SUCH a small world" all the time. i meet someone on a plane with whom i attended college, and she becomes a good friend. my roommate and i are on the beach and end up in conversation with a couple who go to UT Knoxville, and last semester the girl lived next door to one of my favorite people. while i'm visiting tennessee, a friend and i are flipping through some of my photos and she recognizes a girl she went to middle school with. the girl she recognized? the wife of our worship leader. i get a positive comment on a recent blog post, and i realize that not only is he the pastor of my best friend's church, but the blog i wrote was based on a sermon he preached in the first place.

small world. funny stories. throughout all of this, God is quietly whispering (whispering, because you can't yell at fragile people, right?) that He is sovereign. that He orchestrated the entire world. that these strange "coincidences" aren't really coincidental, but perhaps a display of His originality in weaving my life together. and that when He looks at me, He wants to see His reflection, so all of this is part of refinement. but most of all, i am reminded that though everything else changes, He never does. when my world is spinning and changing, He remains steadfast.

...if You would shine Your love down here...i promise i'd reflect it right back at You
- Copeland, When Finally Set Free