The more things CHANGE, the more they remain the same

The more things change
the more they remain the same

Five years ago I would have vehemently disagreed with this title. How can things change and remain the same? The very nature of change implies something new, different, strange and unsettling. If things change, by definition they are different. If they are different how can they possibly remain the same?
Through out the course of our 36 year marriage, my husband Roger Weatherly and I experienced the normal changes all families experience. In the early years before our children were born, we moved several times always in search of a better job and a nicer, larger house. Change was exciting. We were moving up in the world; we were getting ahead. Our family soon included a daughter and a son and our lives were filled with change and we loved it.
As the kids grew, there was baseball, football, band, friends, dates, cookouts, parties and finally college, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren, How does it happen so fast? It seemed that in the blink of an eye the kids were just kids and all of a sudden Roger and I were grandparents.
All of a sudden our public school and insurance company careers became long-term - 29 years for me and 35 years for Roger. It happened so fast. We were just kids ourselves and now 35 years later Roger and I were starring retirement in the face.
Retirement was a change that we longed for and we welcomed it. We were ready to move back to the home of our youth, build a new house, reacquaint ourselves with old friends, take long vacations, work in the yard, raise a garden, have family reunions, visit our children and grandchildren, become more involved in the church and do all of those things we never had time for while we were working and raising our family.
We almost made it full circle. We raised a family, completed careers, made it to retirement, but then Roger died bringing about a devastating change. Life as I knew it was gone. The months that followed his August 16, 1995, death were dark and sad. The sadness was so painful that I feared death for myself at times. What could life hold for me? Everything had changed.
Yes, everything had changed, but as the months passed I began to look forward to going to church where I was baptized so many years ago. I continued to reacquaint myself with the friends of my youth. Little by little all of the values I learned in Sunday school and church, all of the character traits instilled by my parents and teachers, all of the decisions in the name of truth, honesty and justice that Roger and I had made throughout our 36-year marriage focused me toward a new life.
I had suffered devastating change in every aspect of my life except what God had given me in the form of Christian values, character traits and integrity. Love, honesty, goodness, family values, caring, work, friends all remained the same. I still possessed all of those intangibles! I learned them as a child, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend and as an employee, and I still had them. The beauty of life and nature were also unchanged and were as vibrant and ever.
My life has continued in spite of devastating change. I remind myself of a gyroscope that falls off a table and bounces and crashes. But if given a little time it will remain true to its properties of design. It will regain its stability and continue spinning without a wobble just as before the fall.
Now I know it's true. Change is life. Change happens to all of us with or without a set of God-given values. As for me, I had much rather walk down this road of life with a good set of Christian values that will ensure the truth of the paradox: The more things change the more they remain the same.