Change

Things are certainly changing in the Higgins household. Three years ago we sent our oldest, Bo, off to Reinhardt University in Waleska, GA. For the past two summers he has stayed on campus, taken classes and worked. But, we still had three teens at home with our twins and a young man, Dekarius, who lived with us for a little over a year. We moved Dekarius down to Florida last month where he will live, work, and next year attend a local college. Many of you know that Chris left July 5th for boot camp at lovely Ft. Jackson, SC. He’ll graduate in September and go to Ft. Meade, MD for additional training. Carley leaves for Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville at the end of this week. Next week, Pam and I will be empty nesters!

This will certainly be a new chapter in our lives. I know we’ll miss their presence, energy, clutter, and friends dropping by. Dinner will be more of a challenge to prepare as I move from preparing for an always undetermined number of adults and teens to just the two of us. And I know the dinner table will be a bit lonely for a while. But I also know we are looking forward to some of the changes that are coming.

And that’s pretty much life, isn’t it? Our post-modern culture is one of quickly accelerating change. And change is good, but sometimes painful. It has been said that we are either growing or dying, and growth requires change. Think of all the change in McEachern through the years. We moved from a wooden structure to the brick chapel. In 1990 we built the current sanctuary. We embraced new technology like indoor plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, and video. The “old guard” made room for a new generation over and over again through the years so the congregation could keep moving forward. Each generation struggled to be faithful to the Gospel in the context of the changing culture and that led to what we now know as the church we love. As the old preachers like to say, “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us”. Thank goodness those who went before us embraced those changes.

The good news in the midst of sometimes bewildering change is that God remains the same. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13.8). With all the changes going on in our house these days that may just become my favorite Bible verse for a while.