Heart Hope by Olga

Change is in the air. The cooler temperatures and the turning of the leaves indicate that change is happening all around us. While I do enjoy the changing of the seasons, other types of changes can be difficult for me.  Sometimes I think I would like to be able to say that I have lived in the same house for my whole life. Or I might enjoy having worked in the same field for my entire career. However God has had other plans for my life. You see, I can’t even name the number of places I have lived in consecutive order without stopping and thinking hard about it. Within my current company I have had multiple job titles (some I have enjoyed more than others) and as a teacher I was in 8 different schools teaching many different topics.  As much as I think I would like to have stability and consistency in my life, I think of all of the things that would have been missed and all of the people I would never have met and the places I would have never visited. I would...

Change...some people love it, others don't. I happen to be one of those people who don't like change but have had to learn to go with the flow and be flexible over the years. One of the reasons change bothers me is that I like stability in relationships and when change occurs, it often involves people moving in and out of my life. In just a short three week period of time, three people that I really care about will be transitioning to new stages of their lives. One will be getting married and moving, one will be returning home to the Netherlands and the other is beginning a new career path in Denver. All moving, not just from working alongside me, but from the area. In my younger years I wouldn't say goodbye; it sounded much too formal and final. Just plain “bye” seemed like you would see the other person soon, so that's the way I wanted to bid someone farewell. However over the years I have come to realize that no matter how I said goodbye some people would be ...

This week, I spotted the first yellow leaves appearing on the trees. It seems just yesterday that I was watching the leaves burst forth from the dormant trees. Summer will soon be gone and fall will be here in full force with the vibrant yellows, reds and oranges on the mountains. Change…I am not very good with it, in fact, I would be happy if summer would continue on, but it won’t. And in reality, it shouldn’t. Life is a lot like the seasons--just when I think life is set, something changes. Children grow up and start their own families. Jobs come and go. Moves take you from place to place. Loved ones grow older and even pass on. Landlines become obsolete and the newest updates in software come quicker than we can learn the previous version. Seasons of life can be hard and they can also be exciting. Change is really good for us even if we do not like it. If things never changed we would become stagnant and boring. God’s desire is for our lives to be challenging, stimulating, and ever-...