Encouraging Word: Unchanging

By Amy Skogerboe

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Fall can be hard. Nature throws down a glorious, colorful display; the old gives way to make room for the new; summer temps are dropping so that winter beauty and holiday anticipation can begin to rise; and yet … Fall is hard for so many of us, and at the core of that discomfort, I believe, is a human resistance to change. Grown children who still feel young leave home for the first time, transitions in schooling get underway, new jobs and ministries often begin, and the freedom of summer fades into structure and routine. What we have known or grown accustomed to is altered, sometimes for the good, and often just for the weird. Our rhythms are thrown off, the predictable is shook, and our confidence in what is well known is replaced by uncertainty in new endeavors.

Our family moved across the country this fall as my husband began pastoring in a new church. It’s been simultaneously wonderful and deeply hard. We discover we are creatures of habit and comfort when God uproots us, yes? Unfamiliar faces and foreign roads rattle our status quo and stir anxious wonderings about our ability to adapt and restore a sense of belonging. Pastors’ families know these feelings well, and I assume military families easily empathize. We get internally shaken.

In my mid-20s, I experienced the loss of a grandparent for the first time. Having never faced the death of a family member, I felt my world shift profoundly. In the midst of that pain, I recall my Grandma James, a faithful and true believer, speaking comfort and soul assurance to me about the passing of loved ones being like leaves dying and falling from the trees in the fall. God purposed it. There is beauty in it, and there is a certain sadness; both are of God’s hand and by his design. It happens according to his timing, and it is meant to be.

As an adult who has faced profound change both through loss and incredible new blessings and callings, I find myself returning to the foundational truth of the unchanging nature of God as the “anchor of my soul.” The sun rises and the sun sets, but the name of the Lord stands forever. When my sense of being grounded is rocked, the character of God and the reality of his presence in my life hold fast. As he moves our family, increasing the physical distance between us and those we’ve grown to love, I am firmly reminded that we are never alone, and we are always fully known.

During one of my greatest moments of felt anxiety over the pressures and changes of life, I reached out in desperation to a Christian sister and mentor who spoke words I’ll never forget. Faith Nelson took me by the shoulders and addressed the fear that was flooding as tears down my face. “Amy, you are not okay right now, but you will be. I know that to be true not because I know who you are, but because I know whose you are. I know the One who holds you.” I will never forget how deeply that truth poured over my anxious heart and scrambled mind like water over a raging fire. It stilled me then, and 20 years later, as I feel that familiar stir of anxiety and uncertainty threaten to pervade my thoughts and emotions again, I speak it back to myself, and I also speak it to you.

Friend, what change in your life is shaking you? If in vulnerability you find yourself acknowledging that in this moment you are simply not okay, I speak to you the words of comfort and truth that were spoken to me. You may not be okay in this moment, but I know the God who holds you, and because of him, I can tell you that you will stand again on solid ground. Your life and your legacy are founded on the Rock. Your today, your tomorrow, and your future may look different than what you expected or hoped for, and all that you have known in an earthly sense may be stripped away or simply changed. And yet, I say to you: You, my friend, will be so much better than okay. You will live the life, walk the roads, and have the relationships that he has purposed for you. Your future is utterly secured. Ultimately, you and I both will have the eternal peace that surpasses all the fear, pain, and unknowns we face here, and we will know fully and be fully known. Change will no longer cause us anxiety as we live our forever in the presence of the One who never changes.

Skogerboe is a member of Veritas Church, Prescott Valley, Ariz.