Change!

Change: love it or hate it, it will find you.  I tend toward the "hate it" end of the pendulum.  You know, rather deal with the devil I know than the one I haven't yet seen, and all that. 

Being a parent, along with life in general, is slowly teaching me that fighting change is a waste of energy.  For example:

• Oh, yay, you're pregnant and you're so happy you're past that first trimester, when wham-O, at 19 weeks you get a new onslaught of nausea and must-eat-only-pretzels.
• Yes, you know a newborn doesn't sleep much, but this crying til 3am will never end, will it?  Wait, is he asleep?
• Ah, blessed morn, when you first wake after a full night's sleep as your twins boys finally learn to sleep "through the night."  Only to find a week later that they've hit a growth spurt and are starving at 3am again.
• Oh, you thought buying the house meant you would live there the rest of your life?  Silly girl!
• You think this "No" phase is here to stay...  he sounds like a teenager, doesn't he?... and your techniques to discipline are completely ineffective.  But suddenly you're husband says, "Hmm, I didn't give any time-outs today," and you realize you didn't either!
• Deeply entrenched in the stay-at-home-mom, storytime-at-the-library, making your own yogurt from scratch, mommy-blog-reading routine, you find yourself suddenly considering an abrupt shift to "working mom." 

And so on.  Some changes seem bad... okay, let's say it - they stink!  They keep you up all night nursing a suddenly sick kid or leave you wondering how you will pay for your prenatal appointments.  But some, some are good.  Your baby smiles at you: it's amazing!!  A first step, a complete sentence - wow! 

Sometimes change comes in the form of a spiritual shift.  A new way of seeing something.  A light turned on.  Can I call this hope?  Sarah Groves sings "Hope has a way of turning its face to you just when you least expect it."  Yes, I've been surprised by hope in the strangest of places and the most confusing of times.  I didn't even know to look for it; and there God finds me.