Change (part 2)

I spent the weekend with my father and his brother's family in KZN . I hadn't been to my father's childhood village in almost 6 years, and to say things have changed is an understatement.

Firstly, I wasn't falling in and out of sleep during the seven-hour drive like I did growing up, I was the one behind the wheel. That was no problem, regardless of the sore neck and vetkoek-feet when we arrived last night; the problem was my backseat-driver father. The power of the Holy Spirit and my fear of public transport is the only reason I didn't leave Bruno by the side of the road and hitch-hike home. I fully understood Ephesians 6:4 when it instructed fathers not to exasperate their children (although I wasn't sure I understood what 'exasperate' meant but I was certain it was what I felt).
When he fell asleep in the last mile on our way home, my heart was touched and appreciative of his presence. Sure it wasn't nice being told what to do when I knew what I was doing but it was nice having him there showing he loved and cared for me in probably the only way he can, by fussing over things.

The place had changed. So many upgrades were done in the nearby towns, my favorite being  WaterCrest Mall, it was love at first sight! My wallet suffered but my heart was swimming in pleasure! New roads were being built and the village was being developed.
The people had changed. Just like me, everyone has grown up. My cousins are (almost- for my self esteem) my height, the friends I'd spend all day playing outside with have jobs or babies or both, my aunts and uncles have more wrinkled faces and rounder stomachs.

But the change that was hardest to handle was the change which was the absence of my grandparents. Seeing grandmas house was abit emotional. No renovations were done, sure things were missing but the house was still in one piece. But it was just that, a house, no longer a home. Not the home we'd rush to get to and hate to leave, the home filled with love and laughter.  And food! Dare I forget the food, we literally ate all day with umaBlose, fighting over the cookies in the Bakers Choice Assorted box. All that has changed.

Change is part of life. Change is inevitable. Sometimes we welcome change easily because it means independence and new experiences. But sometimes change is hard to swallow because it means loosing our loved ones, it means missing out in making new memories, only replaying the old in your minds. But whether delightful or painful, change must be adopted.

It is then a comfort to have a God who prepares us and walks with us through the changes of life. I love the passages of the Bible speaking of Elijah lately. In 1 Kings 17 we find God providing for this prophet in a miraculous way. But when the brook from which Elijah was provided water dried up, God gave him direction. He told him about a widow He had commanded to provide for him. If Elijah failed to embrace this change and move, he'd die from dehydration and if he failed to believe that God chose a broken vessel to provide for him, he'd also die. When change comes, God comes, in ways and forms that are sometimes unconventional but if I embrace Him and what he tells me, I learn to manage the change, big and difficult as it might be.