A steady presence guiding us through life

What’s the saying? “The one constant in life is change.”

Change — especially difficult change — is like a chameleon. It has an uncanny ability to blend in with its environment. Everything’s as it should be. You’re rolling along just fine — and — blink! — a new color, a new pattern emerges.

The habitat shifts. You’re left feeling out of place in your own skin. And there’s that infernal chameleon demanding you adapt.

I’ve had to accept plenty of challenging change in six decades. The trip to Alaska back in the ‘80s to check out a major move. The place was huge and overwhelming. Another world. And — at spring breakup — everyone looked so worn and bedraggled I wondered where I’d find a friend. The next year — and all the following ones — after making it through an Alaskan winter I looked and felt just like them.

My husband beginning to have trouble walking.

I left for a couple weeks to support our youngest daughter dealing with a concussion. Terry picked me up at the airport on my return. Everything seemed normal. Until it came time to unload. He pulled a cane from the back seat. My heart plummeted. He hadn’t told me. Three years later a walking aid is a standard accessory.

Our son’s high school graduating class family dinner night.

Heading home behind his friend and him. Coming across a rollover down in the brush. The small pick-up looked like theirs. The shock. Terry’s ripped pants hurdling the guard rail, with me close behind. His call that it was not their vehicle — just as I looked down at a young man thrown out on the ground, my mind registering this was not a person I knew. A cross went up on that curve — someone else left to adjust to change that might have been mine.

A biblical example of how things can switch gears in a hurry is Jesus riding into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowds waving palm branches. Palm Sunday — remembered this weekend.

A few days later many of those same people chanted for His death. Cheers turned to jeers.

No one is immune to unwanted change. It hits us all. The universal chameleon. I am helped in dealing with it by the book. This word says a resurrected Jesus Christ is the same “yesterday and today and forever.” A steady presence. Guiding me and growing me through every hard and solitary place. Someone I can trust when all else is shifting.

Maybe I can’t outwit — outmaneuver — outrun change. But maybe I don’t need to.