A Time of Change…

The last few weeks have been a time of change for me. As many of you may know that for the last year plus I have been working as the interpreter for the Brigade Commander here in Diyala Province. As there was a transfer of authority recently between the outgoing Brigade and the incoming Brigade I found myself without a job. The new Brigade Colonel brought his own interpreter with him from the U.S. This happens sometimes. Now I am in my new position as the Linguist for the Governance Advisory Team of Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). While being a Brigade Commander’s Linguists I worked briefly with the PRT before and I know many of the people here. It was a very nice transition to come over to that side of the house and work with them on a regular basis. What we do here contributes to helping Iraqis establish a stable government and it expedites bringing our soldiers home sooner. I’m very glad to be part of this process now. Enough about work… I have begun taking online classes with the University of Phoenix in their Hospitality, Travel, and Tourism program. Kathy and I would like to own a Bed & Breakfast Inn or a small hotel in the future and I thought this would be a wonderful way to prepare myself and increase my knowledge base in this field. I’m looking forward to starting classes on Monday November 3rd. Enough about school… With all these changes occurring, I would like to take a few moments to reflect a little on this life altering process we call change. In my short 32 years of life I have come to realize that change is unavoidable. And in my life in particular, I have been through many major changes. My previous view was that life is this constant stream that is going along and then “change” comes and upsets the stream. I used to think that life is supposed to be the time of stability, and that the times of change that destabilizes life is a negative factor. Now I have come to realize that the one constancy we have in life is change. Life is a never-ending process of change and any stability that we experience in life is actually a time to prepare for the next change. Think about it. After we are born we engage in a process of change we call growth and development – a process that never ends. It has it’s major mile-stones: puberty, midlife, old age, marriage, children, college, career, etc; but even in between those major mile-stones change is constantly taking place. As a result, I have figured out that change is not an interruption; rather it is the basic element of life in which we live. Change is the constant (oxymoron) and stability is the exception to the rule. I’m learning I must not only embrace change as a normal part of my life, but that I should be proactive in pursuing change. If we sit idly by, waiting for change to just happen to us we find that life is always passing us by. We find ourselves not living our lives, but just watching it go by. If we actively keep an eye out for the changes around us we could see the signs of change ahead of time and then we could pursue the changes ourselves and engage in living our lives. Change is difficult for most of us and that’s because we aren’t waiting for it, expecting it, and then welcoming it when it does arrive. I am reminded of the constant warning of Jesus to his disciples that they must be vigilant and always ready for the return of the bridegroom. I’m realizing that in my life that vigilance, that preparedness Jesus was referring to is not necessarily for the end of the world and the second coming only. I’m beginning to understand that the second coming is perhaps the ultimate change that we are looking for, but we should be prepared and looking for every change that comes into our lives. When I’m proactive in pursuing the change and I’m ready for it, I will 1. Be actively living my life not passively seeing go by 2. I will have a say in shaping and molding the changes happening in my life so I’m not acting the victim of haphazard events 3. I will never miss the ultimate change that will happen in the end of life, whether that is the second coming or simply the end of my own physical life which we refer to as death. You see, I’m realizing that pursuing change and welcoming it even brings me to a point of being prepared for death itself. For most of my life it never occurred to me to be prepared for death, but being here in Iraq, I have found myself on several occasions face to face with death, including my own. That was one of the biggest eye openers for me about this topic of change. What’s wonderful, is that God has given us the gift of times of stability so we could prepare and build ourselves up emotionally and spiritually to take on the next change. In military terms, the times of stability are simply staging areas for the next round of battle. And pursuing and welcoming change is certainly a battle, and we have a choice in that battle. We could fight against the change, and we will always lose that battle and be miserable, or we fight to embrace the change and even have a say in it and find that life carries more meaning and more joy. The choice is ours, so let us prepare because change is on its way.