By the Way: Whether it be the season, our surroundings or our lives, even difficult change can be a blessing

By Kristy Reimers-Loader on October 12, 2024.

I’ve always thought of autumn, with its explosion of colour, as the season that reflects the most remarkable change in our environment. Today, though, I find myself still wondering what happened to summer!

I reckon many downtown business owners are probably asking the same question after the disruption to the traffic that would normally be passing by their doors in summer.

I’m reminded of that old song from the ’60s, quoting Ecclesiastes: “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

It’s been said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Change is indeed constant, but many of us wish things could stay the same.

Instead of seeing ourselves age in the mirror, we’d stop the clock and hold those wrinkles at bay, if we could. Or, freeze time to keep our friends and family members, not to mention our beloved pets in the prime of their lives so we’d never have to mourn them.

The passing of time and the changes that come with it can be a blessing, though. If we never changed, we’d never grow. The naïveté of youth would never develop into the wisdom of full maturity, and the wise person knows there is a season in every life when we’ve gathered and saved enough resources to dig down and do a little work on ourselves.

Sometimes it’s old, broken stuff that needs fixing. Other times, it’s just preventative maintenance – stuff that’s best taken care of now, before it causes more problems in the future. It’s rough to feel like we’ve lost a summer, or a season of our lives, but as we observe the leaves turning from green to gold and falling, I find it’s easier to appreciate the beauty above us when we’ve done our work here on the ground.

Chaplain Kristy Reimers-Loader

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