How To Deal With Change

Change. Some resist it like the plague, others embrace it. If you’re like me, you’ve done both. How you view change often depends on the situation at hand. But one thing’s for sure. . . it is inevitable. We can try with all our might to keep it from happening, white-knuckling “the way it’s always been” with all our might, but it somehow always overrides our best efforts to hold on to the security blanket that is the past. Everyone wants to know how to deal with change. And change often comes with painful situations. Then we want to know “why does God allow pain and suffering?” These are valid questions, but their answers aren’t always simple. Keep reading to discover what I have come to learn about the matter.

How to Deal With Change

A few years back, I experienced some devastating health problems that were, to say the least, debilitating. Chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, and Fibromyalgia ruled my life. During this dark period of my life, I often asked myself “why does God allow pain and suffering in our lives?” I prayed for Him to show me the answer to my question.

And He led me to 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

My Answer

Whoa. My life felt as though it was changing so fast. So much that I felt like my head was spinning. I had been begging God for answers to two differing questions. I wanted to know how to deal with change and why does God allow pain and suffering in our lives? His answer hit me like a ton of bricks. We go through hard times for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is so we can help others.

Why Does God Allow Pain and Suffering in Our Lives?

After these verses were revealed to me, I knew deep inside that God would one day give me the opportunity to comfort someone who is going through a similar situation.

But here’s the catch: I could either choose to grow from this experience or come out the other side of it as the same girl, unchanged with a victim mentality.

There I stood at the proverbial “fork in the road” with a decision to make. I chose to grow and an amazing thing happened. This decision gave me the strength and hope to endure through this difficult time in my life.

I realized that choosing to remain unchanged would mean that I would be wasting my sufferings, stunting my personal growth, and robbing others of the gift of the comfort that I could have given them.