For a long time, I have told myself that I hated change.

I convinced myself to abide in whatever was normal and comfortable and to shy away from anything that was different. Whether it was a daily routine, habit, hobby, job, relationship, a new place to eat, or a new place to live. Big or small, I didn’t like change and I definitely didn’t like trying new things.

When I say I hated change, I mean that I really hated it. It was the sort of thing that felt like it would follow me around and loom over my mind and I couldn’t get away from it. When I knew that there was something new starting in my life in the near future, I couldn’t help but think about it. It really consumed my mind. I knew that it didn’t have to be that way, but I honestly didn’t know what to do about it.

Recently, I have been going through a lot of change in a short amount of time. I graduated college, left the family business after working there for 6 years and changed careers to start a new business, moved out for the first time, changed some ministries, got engaged and will be getting married in 42 days. I’m experiencing change in just about every area of life and for the first time, I am enjoying it!

I learned a few things from this season:

• It was the anticipation of change that I didn’t like, not the change itself. I need to simply take on the change.
• I never thought I would feel this way, but I have liked changing things up. It has been good for me mentally, spiritually, and even physically to break some of the routine.
• I knew ahead of time this season of change was coming my way, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. I decided that I was going to simply ‘man up’ and embrace it. This might be a surface way of looking at it, but the reality of what I learned is that our expectation and perception of things can either complicate or simplify our experience.  Before this realization, I was definitely complicating the change.
• My life is going to a process of progression and change and I can’t get away from that. I have no choice but to learn how to handle change.

I thought there was going to be some special secret sauce to cope with the change, but that’s not what I found. Instead I know that now I can choose a positive outlook, lean on the Lord and simplify the change.