While we often can’t anticipate, predict, or see the change that’s coming our way, we have the ability to embrace it as an opportunity to transform our current situation for the positive.
Whether we plan for it or not, change happens. There are many times when we least expect it, are not prepared for it, or devastated by its news – change hits us. Fortunately, there are other times when we create and embrace change. Those are the times when it is relatively easy to engage in the potential of the event. However, for those who have experienced untimely, unsettling, or disturbing change, discovering or celebrating an opportunity in it is hard.
I recently had a very profound and insightful conversation with a dear friend. This friend was going through a very challenging time personally and professionally. Currently, their business was in ruins, their house in foreclosure, they had no job prospects, and they were rapidly running out of the retirement funds that were sustaining their day-to-day needs. They were not sure what they were going to do. They knew they were going to likely move and probably leave the area they were in to pursue prospects in a different region where the opportunities, though much less desirable, were more plentiful. It was not the scenario they envisioned when they moved to the region years earlier.
Then, something happened that changed everything – their aging mother became quite ill. As the child who always pulled things together for their family, my friend went back home to care for Mom and help Dad do those things he was determined, thought incapable, to do. After three months back home caring for and supporting two elderly parents, my friend came to the reality that they may have to move back home permanently.
When I was hearing this story, I couldn’t help but be moved by the force of change and the opportunity change can offer us. Here was a situation where change was the answer. It was what my friend knew what was going to happen eventually – the move out of the area – yet, had avoided at all costs because they were determined to resist the obvious change. Despite the obvious opportunities to finally have a purpose and a calling, they are still struggling to embrace the unique, temporary opportunity this unfortunate event offers them.
There are times we know change is necessary; but, we plow forward resisting the obvious hoping for some other outcome. Then, out of the blue, change is thrust upon us and we are forcibly moved out of our spot. No matter how disruptive, disturbing, untimely, and painful the change we experience – it is likely the gift that we needed to transform something that unsettled in our lives. While my change adverse friend hasn’t seen or had an opportunity to celebrate or realize the true gift change has given, I am confident every one of you can see the ironic opportunity this change has created.
As you cope with and face those challenges that threaten your peace every day, remember change is the opportunity for the transformation in your life you likely needed.
