By Brenda Cannon Henley
Our lives are detailed, different, and sometimes daunting. They are also delightful and filled with good people, good experiences, and good memories. Balancing the mixture is our No. 1 job and one we find we react differently to each stage as we maneuver the years God has assigned to us. I learn something new or different every day of my life and I pray that I never stop learning and growing as I travel on my journey. When change comes, and especially so, when it is not by choices of our own, we feel we cannot surmount the new ideas, health issues, deaths of loved ones, financial or physical challenges, and we falter and feel we are fading out of our own existence. Each human being, uniquely designed by God, has different instances, times, and events that shape the overall life. We may not see them coming and feel blindsided when they appear. We may long for a change or changes and yet feel frightened when they begin to happen.

We have all been taken by surprise a few monumental times in our lives, and when our perfect plans do not work out like we thought, we find ourselves questioning people and sometimes the God of our creation. I read this week that some pottery vessels are strongest at the broken places. When the master potter puts a broken pot back together after a damaging crack has formed or seeing his shattered work hit the stone floor, he knows where the stress points are and where the creation is likely to break again. God knows this about each of us because He made us and He cares about us.

I personally have faced some serious change points or watershed moments in my life in the last 18 months or so, and I am finding daily new paths and new sources of joy and peace. It has not been an easy road and it is certainly not one I asked for, but in His wisdom and plan, I am living and grabbing happiness along the way. A friend and I had a discussion this week about the changes that come to all lives and how differently we all handle them. I thank God that His grace is indeed strong enough and real enough to see us through the toughest days of our lives. I have found His grace to be sufficient for every struggle, trial, lonely night or day, and for the questions that just keep on popping up in my own life. It is strong enough for you today, too.

I read in Gari Meacham’s Watershed Moments, that when we start from a place of desperate hope in our lives, marked by a deep longing for some new and freeing adventure, we find these watershed moments that become the turning points in our lives. We sense a new direction, a fresh perspective, an answered prayer, a humble surrender, and instances that redirects us and leaves us profoundly changed. Meacham lists seven specific watershed moments – change, awareness, restoration, control, approval, fighting evil, and belief and reminds us that we can either face up to our turn away from change.

Whatever watershed moment or change point you are facing, or perhaps yearning for, give it to God and allow Him to use it in your life for good. Spring is a good time for change. Clean out the old baggage and get on with the new and life giving. God is waiting to help you and to guide you on this leg of your earthly journey. Happy spring and happy change.

(This article published 3/23/2015)

Brenda Cannon Henley can be reached at (409) 781-8788, at
[email protected], or by using the contact form below.

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