Change-Packed with Blessings

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams
Confession—I don’t like change. I like settling into my life and getting comfy—like a favorite pair of old shoes.

But life has never been meant to remain stagnant. Like the water that word brings to mind, it begins to smell. When we sit too long without changing, without growing, without adding to the world around us, we too, become stagnant.

In the past few months, years even, my life has had more changes than I felt prepared to deal with. Yes, bad sentence structure, but that is how jumbled things have been. Seemingly all out of order.

North Carolina 

We built a new home in North Carolina only to leave it two years later to come back to Florida, from whence I am writing today. Then we discovered we missed North Carolina and the life we had there, so we purchased another home there. A condo this time so that we could keep two smaller homes, one in Florida to be near our boys and my sister, and one in North Carolina to give us the life we love so much, nestled in the mountains of the western part of that beautiful state.

But life is all about change.
Good-Bye Florida

One of our sons moved to North Carolina. Talk about irony. Our youngest son, who lived in our condo in Florida and who cared for it in our absence, moved to Texas, just this past week. Our remaining son has plans to move to our beautiful mountains in the coming years, so we are preparing to say our final good-bye to Florida, the state which we have called home since 1984.

While I do not like change, it disrupts the flow of my very thoughts, this is a good move for us. It has been from the beginning. I cling to Jeremiah 29:11, I know the plans I have for you . . .
 

Moving to North Carolina opened up many writing opportunities for me—and friendships I could never have imagined when I first stepped into the world of writing. God is amazing. But I know that you already know that. The doors that have opened to me had only been in my dreams, as they seemed such an impossibility. But while I was obedient in sitting down to put this story on paper—the one that wouldn’t let me sleep at night until it was told—God was behind the scenes, working things out for my good, making the crooked straight, the rough places plain.
Blessings

As we pack up the last of our things this week and prepare to move on to the next phase of our lives, I look back at all the good things that have been given to us since that move back in 1984. We added one last son to our family in 1990, a daughter-in-love in 2002, followed by our beautiful granddaughters in 2004 and 2010. We found a church full of wonderful people who are still impacting our lives and those of our children. We formed friendships that will be in our hearts no matter where we go. Wanda, Paula, Doris, Eileen, Al and Lori. You are loved beyond words and we thank you for being such a huge part of our lives here.

So, with no regrets—we move on, giving thanks to God for the multitude of blessings He had planned for us in our obedience to move from our beloved sweet home, Alabama, back in 1984. We wait with anticipation for the blessings we know He will have for us in our new home.

What changes have you experienced this past year, past decade? Share those with us, please, and don’t forget to share the blessings.

TWEETABLE

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