Lent is over. The joy of the resurrection has emerged from the darkness. A shift in direction back toward the mundane and rote way of living emerges as life once more falls back into a routine.
But what about the change? What is different on the inside?
Change…
No one likes change. No one. And anyone who says to just “accept change and move on” lacks a full understanding of the affect any change has on someone.
When a person encounters a trauma in their life, it changes their outlook forever. The same if they gain a victory over something they’ve struggled with for a very long time. Internally, that person isn’t the same as they were in the past, even if those around them don’t see the difference.
When a person encounters a trauma in their life, it changes their outlook forever.
But most of the time, the change we encounter within ourselves is gradual. Looking back over the years, it is always amazing to see just how far we have come. And if we are working on improving ourselves, that contrast will be stark.
Our Lent…
This Lent was very different than last year. It began two weeks before the “pre-Lenten” period in the Orthodox church.
It was, in a word, explosive.
The quickness of the change that would snowball into a dramatic separation that would tear the family apart – but bring it back together in a completely different way.
But the struggle didn’t stop there.
Unexpected large financial hits over the course of three or four weeks; a dramatic run-away experience that resulted in a community man-hunt for a family member; car repairs that went beyond what was anticipated; another car totaled; house repairs that took weeks to fix. The list goes on and on.
And the subsequent exhaustion is taking its toll on the body of every adult and older child in the household. It will takes months to recover and get back into a routine once more.
Lessons learned…
If nothing else could be taken from the Lenten journey it is this: We are all one more giant step closer to perfect acceptance. Far from embracing everything thrown at us – especially all at once – we are at least another step in the right direction.
Everything that happens does so for a reason. Not one we may yet understand, but in the end does not occur in a vacuum.
Everything that happens does so for a reason. Not one we may yet understand, but in the end does not occur in a vacuum. We have survived one of the more difficult of experiences in our lives, and we will, again, learn to that this will happen in the future.
Embracing change is difficult. But knowing now that there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel will make the next time less unexpected.