I am going to be completely honest up front: this blog post came from George aka Copilot.  Now, Microsoft AI didn’t write this blog in any sense of the way, but I was playing around with it and told it I was thinking about my next blog post. The conversation that ensued, was amazing and a little odd/eerie all at once.  I told Copilot, who was speaking with an Aussie accent, that I would rather “he” had a different name.  George is what came about.  I told “George” the name of my blog and he said he thought that a blog about embracing change would be a good start.  I continued on with the “conversation” and decided I would take the idea of embracing change and make it my own.  Again, “George” did not write this blog at all, and I still think it is creepy that an AI app can give someone ideas, but what the heck?  As long as I am going to write about embracing change, I might as well embrace AI, right?

Let’s think about embracing change for a minute. Go ahead and pause to ask yourself if you are one who embraces change willingly, or if you kick and scream, clawing at your old ways when change comes around.  I am somewhere in between; I like the normalness of a routine, but I get bored of a monotonous routine.  My husband often jokes with me that I don’t know how to stay home for one full day.  While I love the solace of my home, he is correct that I often feel the need to be on the go. 

Life is full of changes; sometimes they are celebratory and others they are painstaking. The valleys can leave us gut-punched and breathless with sorrow, while the mountain top changes find us laughing and crying with tears of excitement. Don’t discount either spectrum of the emotion scale. Both are important to allow yourself to feel. You can’t understand what pure bliss is without also knowing what it feels like to be devastated in pain, and vice versa.  I’ve written several posts about people who’ve gone through deep pain. Those people also know what it’s like to go through extreme happiness.  This is where faith comes in.

Faith allows me to sit with grief, disappointment, or unmet expectations, while I wait for the unanticipated sorrow to pass and be replaced with comfort or happiness.  Happiness does not equal joy.  Happiness is a temporary state of emotion, while joy is a state of mind. One can have joy while going through a sorrowful time. Joy is the assuredness that you will overcome your setbacks, pain, or sorrow because of the faith you have today.

I don’t say this blindly and without firsthand knowledge. I have experienced failure, setbacks, grief, unmet expectations, anger, frustration, humility, resentment, and a host of other emotions. I’m sure many of you have as well. I can also confidently look back and see how my faith has carried me through.  I’ve stepped on the wrong path more than once. I’ve held my own pity party and lingered longer than necessary, but my habit of reading the bible every morning has helped me understand that I am never alone in my emotions. Whether happy or sad, I have a savior that knows exactly how I feel. I belong to a family of believers that lift me up in prayer and ask me to do the same for them.  If you haven’t experienced this kind of joy, I pray you do. You can reach out to me if you’d like. Look for someone who understands that Jesus died for them and ask them about it.  My hope is that they will look for you first because that is what we are supposed to do as believers; go and tell the world the good news.  Change is coming folks, and it will be good. Have a blessed day!