The Weight of Change

I remember standing outside of Amy’s house. It was just 10th grade, but it felt like the rest of my life was unfolding. Dominoes doing gymnastics all down my spine. There was no way I was gonna do something to end this relationship. And I certainly couldn’t imagine why she’d ever wanna leave me.

She and I. Were gonna be. She and I. Forever. I just knew it.

And my world was rainbows and puppies and ferris wheels and chocolate. Sweet bliss and boundless joy. Until. I felt something else. A heavy weight.

In the moment, it didn’t feel good. It scared me like a test I hadn’t studied for. Confusion. Doubt. Regret. Anxiety. Nerves twisted. Stomach turned. And yet. Somehow, someway, I knew this feeling was just the surface of something else. I got the sense that what was really happening was all for the good. In fact, more good than I’d ever really known before. I just had to experience this dying of old, a breaking of sorts, for something better to burst forth.

I strolled home. Feeling all those feelings — the ones mixed up like a Halloween grab bag of King-Size Snickers, bright handfuls of Starbursts, and one too many funny, foamy waxy, un-wanted peanut candies — a whole lotta good, but just enough bad to make you put your whole life in perspective.

= = =

Amy and I made it. 6 years of dating. And we’ll be celebrating 9 years of marriage just this week. She’s been the steady tracks to my raucous rollercoaster. And that lesson I learned back in 10th grade — the one I felt from standing outside of her house — it’s helped me countless times.

Moving off to college in Chicago — weight.

My first job in Kentucky — weight.

Pursuing full-time ministry back home in Arkansas — weight.

And now…

Moving off to California to pursue seminary — again, weight.

And each time, there’s been this great impulse to associate what I now know as simply the weight of change with what feels like Confusion. Doubt. Regret. Anxiety. Nerves twisted. Stomach turned.

But each time, I trust that the feel-bad breaking in me is really just an all-good growing in me. And so, I point my feet back home. With a hope that’s grown stronger from seeing so much through, even when the first steps hurt.

Steady footstep. Shaky footstep.

Steady footstep. Shaky footstep.

Steady footstep. Steady footstep.