to everything there is a season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

² a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

If there is one thing I've learned during this Washington, D.C. experience is that change is inevitable. That embracing that change can be beautiful. That sometimes the change can be almost a sigh of relief.

I wish I could say that this lesson was ingrained in me. However, I am still in a learning process to embrace change and to know that in the end, everything will be okay. I believe that maybe this will be a lesson I have to learn over and over again.

Yet I am learning it a little better now.

When I moved to D.C I had no choice but to learn to accept change. Everything was temporarily changing for me. Where I was living. Where I was going to school. Where I was going to church. Who I saw on a regular basis. It was an open and unfamiliar future for the next few months.

This caused me to feel both anxiety but also a hint of excitement as I made the journey up the East Coast and left the South that I loved. I did not know how that would settle within me once I said goodbye to my parents after they moved me into my apartment.

At first I felt nothing but excitement. All the newness was exhilarating and I enjoyed being in a bigger, busier city. I came to love the 20016 zipcode. I was on what I call my "Washington high". After the first month, this wore off and I settled in.

Yet the love for the city did not fade. I was comfortable. What had been outside of my comfort zone I came to enjoy. I learned a lesson that even though everything in my day to day had changed, I could be content.

The core of my support system did not change at all. My family, friends and church families back home still were my rock. Their love was felt across the hundreds of miles that now separated us. I knew that even from a distance the foundation of love that had help build for me would sustain me.

I learned that as I was changing to a new season paralleling the season change from summer to fall outside-there was a simple beauty to each new day. There was consistency within myself of the love and support from constants in my life, but exciting change as something new was happening each day.

It was a simplicity that had been present before, but that I had failed to see or appreciate.

I've been very reflective lately. It that reflection and a new simple perspective, I saw that through each new season of my life, there was goodness. Every time I had been afraid of an oncoming change, that change never had been bad. It had been good. Just as what had been there before had been good. There also was a certain consistency through each season that sustained me.

I know that soon this season will change too. I'll move back to a new chapter. After that will come a new chapter, a new season. Again and again it will occur. I cannot control that. Something old me would want to do. However, this new me that is emerging knows that not having control can be good.

There is beauty in simplicity. Maybe we all need a little bit more of that in our lives. I know I do. I know I need to be more simple in seeing that beauty in my day to day life. Knowing that this journey is more important than the ending destination because that ending destination is not just one. At each new season of my life, there will be a new destination point.

I do not have just one ultimate one. One that is better than all the simple moments of a journey leading to it. That ultimate destination is enjoying this journey called life. That's where I'll find the real beauty.

I

just drop it already.

There was just enough of a weird mix of rain/mist to curl my hair and try my nerves. However, I didn't want to be flustered. Not this morning. I wanted to just get to dry land, aka the church conference room. I passed by others who were hurrying to a certain destination point like me.

Work. School. Starbucks.

Side note: There is literally a Starbucks around every dang corner here. Not that I'm complaining.

However, the point is that everyone was focused on Step B. The next place on their schedule, the next check mark off their calendar, the next step.

I was not any less guilty than every other person I passed on the dreary and wet Wednesday morning.

Then God hit me with a reminder when I made it to that church conference room of just to "drop it" already.

How many times have we heard that saying when we were fighting with siblings or friends in middle school? Our go to out was just to "drop it". Whatever the most likely petty argument was. I wonder how many times God looks down at us and thinks "My goodness Rebecca, just drop it already."

Drop the worry.
Drop the hurrying.
Drop the control.
Drop trying to please everyone.

Pleasing people were what I was always trying to do growing up. I hated to have anyone one upset or angry with me. And if I ever that "d" word of "disappointment", then my whole world came tumbling down. I would be devastated.

It started to wear on me in high school. I had begun to put myself last and everyone else first. Except not in an humbling manner like Christ calls us to do. But in a manner where I was constantly saying "yes" because I wanted to keep everyone happy.

By the time I was in college, my tank had hit the empty mark. I was drained and anxious. I had to learn to let go.

I say that like it is easy. No, it is a daily struggle where I have to consciously remind myself to let go and let God. It is so relieving, and I know this. However, I am quicker to retreat to trying to control it myself. Then I hit that empty mark again very quickly.

Zacchaeus best teaches us this lesson. It was where we turned to in Luke this morning at Small Group. A tax collector who literally had all the material goods he could want. He had power and prestige. Yet he was empty. He was a "wee" man who society turned away and deemed "not good enough". Yet Jesus immediately called him out in the crowd. When everyone else was ignoring him, Jesus was recognizing him.

This changed Zacchaeus. He let go.

Jesus calls us the same way. Yet why do we more often than not retreat away? Why do we try to collect our goods ourselves and think it will be enough? It only drains us of joy, happiness, and peace. It also makes us less sensitive to the pre-Jesus Zacchaeuses. The ones who society says are not good enough. Who aren't worthy. Who are in their circumstances or facing trials because of something they did.

I think that is when God tells us to "drop it". Drop all the control and embrace His peace.

How can He use us then? How could we help the young, homeless mother on the street or the friend who is longing for a listening ear or the prostitute getting into her pimp's car. How could Jesus use us if we just "dropped it".

Imagine how powerful that could be.