Hooking up with Kate Motaung over at Five Minute Friday today.

Today’s word:  Change.

 

 

I take to change about as well as Red takes to having a band-aid .  There’s a lot of shimmying and wailing  A couple fan kicks.  Some pathetic bargaining.  Some snot.  A bit more of the wailing business.  Sometimes there’s even a frantic bit of hopping around on one foot which usually leads to, you guessed it, another band-aid situation.

I don’t like change.

That’s like saying I don’t care for strep throat.

Good golly, when I decide to bake cookies, I start three days early by setting out flour and some bowls.  I have to commit slowly to cookies, because it’s such a monumental task.  It is too much change, I tell you. Day two, I set out some vanilla.  Maybe a spoon.  Perhaps even the cookie sheet.

Day three – we conquer softening butter.  And so on.

Anyhow.  About three years ago I decided to basically change everything about my life.  It’s like I woke up one day and said, “I think I’ll try to get through this day by standing on my head and speaking French.  Should work out all right.”

It was the kind of change that made my whole world feel like I was in one of those fun houses where all the furniture is on the walls and you walk on a sloped floor, leaning and laughing and trying to find a door.

Except I wasn’t laughing much, and I had a lot of doors all around me – most were big ones with nice pretty labels on them labeled: Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Pinot Whatever, Merlots and lots… etc.

But I made it through one day.  I basically stayed in bed (for real) because the whole house was all tilty and getting up meant I could head for a door.  Bed was easier.

Day two, much of the same.

And so on.

And after a while, after a long long while of shifting and shimmying and hopping around on one foot and WAILING and pleading – I pretty much realized that I have changed just about everything.

 

My soul was awful back then.  It was tired and sick and sad.  I couldn’t imagine a world without drinking, but I couldn’t stand the thought of continuing drinking.  I was trapped.

And therefore today I will sing and shout and cry out from the rooftops with a big fat Amen:

CHANGE IS GOOD.

I AM FREE.

 

 

 

 

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.    Psalm 51:10