Ch-ch-ch-changes

I may have mentioned this once or twice, but I have always loved the seasons. I live in a part of the South where we feel all four of them, where we watch the light change ever so slightly in the late afternoon and feel the humidity lift in the cool of the evening. All of a sudden, fall is descending upon us.

As I feel the relationships around me changing, I understand that they too, are seasonal. My friends are marrying, some are having babies, and I am still on my own. But I am okay there; happy even. When you establish friendships as young single adults in college, people never really let on that when some of you marry and some of you don't, it will change things. Dynamics change, plans change, priorities change. The season of "freestyle," as my girlfriends and I call it, has ended.

I sat at brunch yesterday with my family and at the table next to us there were five women, one had a newborn baby. I couldn't stop myself from eavesdropping as they planned their day of shopping and chatting and passing the baby from one set of longing arms to the next. They would meet their husbands later and "What are you wearing to dinner tonight" conversations carried on as they breezed out of the restaurant. I couldn't help but think, that will be us in a few years.

And I understood then that I don't feel left behind. I feel exactly where I should be. We live in seasons and we are all on different paces, but the beauty is the seasons always come back around. Those women's friendships were a few cycles of seasons ahead of me and mine, but they weren't so different from where we are. Maybe they had gained some fine lines, some husbands, some houses and some history, but adding those things was only adding.

Fine lines mean laughter. Husbands mean love. Houses mean home. History means wisdom. Change is God's way, as Donald Miller said. I want a life that is rich. And I think that means change.