Have you ever known someone who prays for change and then fights tooth and nail when it starts to happen? I am one of those people. I really want change in my life but I don’t like the process that I have to go through in order for that change to take place. Let’s face it, real change, lasting change is sometimes painful. 

Humans are programmed, or rather, it is in our nature to avoid pain and discomfort and to seek out pleasure. We want the effects of going through the process without actually having to do it. We complain and mumble about our current state and long for something better but are not willing to fight our way through the process that will make it happen. As humans, we have a natural tendency to take the easy way out; and sometimes the easy way is remaining exactly where we are.

I have been going through such a process the last year or so. It came on suddenly and I was blindsided by the fact that I was being forced into an uncomfortable and even a hurtful process. Just prior to this, I was growing uncomfortable in other areas of my life. I was mostly content and grateful for the opportunities in my life but wished deep down that things were different. I wished I was different. You know that uneasiness in your soul that says there has to be a better way or that there must be more to what you currently know or experiencing?

I prayed for change for so long but the problem was that I really did not know how to make it happen. Or, maybe I did, but was not willing to begin the process to get to where I thought I needed to be. I got stuck where I was and lacked the inertia to motivate change. Maybe I am the only one who is like that. The only one who complains (even internally) about how things are, prays for something different, then start to complain when that change process starts to happen. As Dr. Seuss cleverly states, “Un-stucking your self is not very fun”.

So, there I was, in a position where I thought my entire world was falling apart. My life as I knew it suddenly cease to be. I found myself having to quit my job, moving to a different state and trying to figure out how things got so messed up. My identity was wrapped up in what I did for a living and who I associated with, and the activities that I engaged in. In a matter of a few months, that identity was gone.

Have you ever felt lost in life? Just aimlessly going through the motions and trying to figure out which way is up? That was me a year ago. Suddenly I was in a “process” that was so uncomfortable and so painful that it produced anxiety and depression that was all over the place. How did I get here? What did I do to mess things up in my life…again? 

The answer is that instead of initiating that change that I desperately wanted I was pushed into that process. I believe that sometimes God nudges you in the right direction and other times he pushes you off the deep end. That’s what he did for me.  Notice I said for me and not to me? He initiated something that I could not or was not willing to do myself. That was to start the process of change. Something that I had prayed for to happen but was scared to let occur. Those times were really rough. I did a lot of questioning and reevaluating of my life. I did not have a lot of purpose but felt useless. In those dark times I did not even know who I was anymore. I was just there. 

However, I began to realize something during those times. I was lost because I did not have my identity anymore. That’s who I was as a person. It was who people saw me as. It was my purpose and my identity was enmeshed with what I did and not really who I was.  Who was I really? I didn’t know the answer. However, in this process of “changing” I began to learn what it means to exist and not do. Was I existing for God or was I doing for myself? Over time, I had to realize that my identity as a person or my concept of self- worth was not in what I did for a living or what others saw me as but rather as a person who simply exists in Him and for Him. As I began to understand this concept, I felt something that I always wished I had. That feeling, for a lack of a better word, was peace. Peace is what I prayed for such a long time. Peace is what I really needed in my life but was unable to achieve on my own. Another thing I felt was contentment. Not happiness that comes and goes but the feeling that you are where you are supposed to be in this phase of your life. You can have it all, but without peace and contentment, you can still have nothing at all.

Now here I am. A little over a year later and I sit outside and notice the sunrise in the morning and enjoy watching it go down in the evening. It is something that not long ago was just the start and end of another day. I was too busy living my life instead of truly… living. I don’t say that I have figured it all out or that I am completely through that change process. Only God knows that for sure. However, the change that I was looking for ended up being a change in me. Although my entire life was different, I was the one who really changed. And that was what I was really praying for all along.

Yes, we all want change at times. Yet, the process that we go through in order to get where want to be can be hard and uncomfortable. There will be a lot of questions and even sleepless nights. Yet, in time, if you allow yourself to go through that process, you begin to transform, as well. And if that happens, even though our circumstance does not evolve that much, we may look at things in a different light. That’s because the peace and contentment we feel shows us that we are the ones who have really changed.