Change and the Power of Choice

I’ve been neck deep in change over the past few months, as I imagine many of you have. My job got nutty, looking for a new job is stressful, and to top it off … this morning I went down to the garage to find out my car had been broken in to. It was stressful to have to call my boss, on what is my fourth day of working for the company, and explain to him I’d be quite late.

On Saturday, we have our retreat and our theme is about Change. And how each of us reacts to it. The team gravitated to the topic because we know how much upheaval everyone’s life has been in.

Without revealing too much of the planned discussions, one of the powerful things we all realized in discussing the topic is that while change is constant, each of us actually has a tool in the face of change: we have choice. We can choose how we react to everything that comes in to our life. If we like it, we can choose to keep whatever that thing or person or situation is. If we don’t like it, we can choose to make our own changes that remove an undesirable thing or person or situation from our lives.

We can meet any kind of change with our own powerful choices.

Tonight, I’m drafting the closing thoughts for the day. Here they are:

So as we leave each other today, may we leave with new strength.
A strength from what we’ve learned from ourselves
Strength knowing our inner hearts
Strength from all those who are here today, sharing our journey
Strength from our faith in God
Strength in God’s allowing us to make choices
Strength knowing that when we are faced with change, we will make good choices that keep us true to our mission and purpose
Strength knowing that should we falter we have God’s strong hands to keep us on track.

I wish each of you this same kind of strength.