Say that again!
At a neighbourhood dinner party recently I was sharing my healthy green drink recipe. The conversation stopped when I said, “ … and you mix it for 30 seconds in the vitamiser”. The room remained quiet until someone worked out that I was talking about a blender.A week later my son and daughter in-law were planning a BabyQ and were discussing what appliances they needed. I volunteered my crockpot. Again there was silence until someone suggested I meant a slow cooker.
When my daughter reminded me that no one calls a hand held vacuum cleaner a Dustbuster anymore I became conscious of how language has changed in such a short time (I’m not very old, you know).
New traps
Being gay doesn’t mean being happy and where we used to sign letters to sweet hearts with lol, that now means laugh out loud. My dear mum (who was emailing years before I touched a keyboard or is that keypad?) thought it still meant lots of love, so when her neighbour of 58 years passed away she posted a loving message about her sad death on Facebook and finished with ‘lol’. Oops!Language changes and so does life. Every day we experience change.
- Some change is organic; eyes fade, ears dull, children grow up, leave home, come back and leave again.
Wrinkles appear and so do grandchildren.
Some change is intentional like losing weight, moving house, praying and reading daily devotions, being grateful and choosing to forgive.
Some change is uninvited; a car accident, redundancy, a miscarriage, sickness or a death of a loved one. This uninvited change is the hardest to manage. Other changes can cause varying degrees of stress but unexpected and unwanted change can be very distressing.
So how do we cope?
Our emotional responses are our first choice, which is normal and human, but our mind can decide where we end up.- Knowing God loves us unconditionally gives us solid ground to process change.
- Knowing God is for us and not against us gives us hope.
- Knowing He is loving Father, all powerful, all knowing, ever present, gives us comfort and peace.
- Knowing He is the same yesterday, today and forever gives us assurance in an ever-changing world.
- Knowing these things, we then learn to trust Him.
Managing change gets easier over time as we learn to put our trust in God. This year let’s be intentional about surrendering our circumstances to our Heavenly Father.
I have written a four session program on ‘Doing Life God’s Way’. In it we explore how our view of God influences our trust in Him. If you would like to have me present all or part of this program to your women’s group, call or Email me about it.