Change and Context

Change.

How does that make your feel?

Sometimes even the mention of the word can send me into an emotional frenzy.

I guess it comes back to context.

I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying and processing about change the last few days. I even began a post two days ago, but couldn't quite organize my thoughts and feelings into any kind of complete understandable wording. This morning, this whole idea of change and context is where God seems to be providing some kind of cohesive meaning.

In the last few months we have been slowly changing the furniture in our den. First, the new television dictated the removal of the armoire that was home to the old one. We found a great replacement cabinet at Target. This, and the dog getting sick on the matching chair, hurried the replacement of our much loved, hand-me-down (Thank you Aunt Sherry!) sofa. After 25 years of use and too many moves to count, its age really did show.

We donated the furniture to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I prayed as the truck left the driveway that another family or families could be blessed. Yet, I felt strange. I love my new sofa and am excited about the chairs my father-in-love is having recovered for us. I can't wait to see what the ottoman will look like when my husband is finished recovering it with the great material we picked out together . . . But, it was still hard to let go.

I remember shopping with my new husband well over a decade ago to find just the perfect armoire. I fed each of my three babies on that sofa and it was the couch we took our Sunday Siestas on for so long.

I had to weigh our needs, and -honestly- our wants to go ahead and make this change. The future, a newly furnished room is better than our old, beat up, familiar past.

Yes, this may be a silly comparison, but this is exactly what God wants to do with our hearts if we will let Him. When we do, He does amazing things with the interiors of our very souls. The context of this change is so very good. Whatever it is that we must let go in order to receive the blessing of His presence in return is so worth it in the end . . .