The last week of school was a dizzying whirlwind as our family had field trips, field days, dance parties, hang out parties, water parties, teacher farewells, school farewells, band concerts, thank you gifts to give, birthday gifts to give, meals to deliver, and I’m sure I’m still forgetting something. The coming of summer is a huge time of transition: leaving a grade, a school, a teacher; expectant for summer or dance recital or camp or swimming; hopeful about the coming new school, new teachers. My testimony for this May is we all totally made it through all the end-of-the-year things. God’s grace is super big.

If you couldn’t tell, change isn’t my forte. I am a little better at it than I used to be considering all the experience I’ve racked up in my decades, but I still find what I like and settle in. And then things shift, all the time. Even in the choices I can control—such as who I married—there are circumstances beyond my reach. I can promise to love that man for the rest of my life, for the rest of his life…but we neither one of us know how long that is. So we have to make each day count. And even in the midst of those days, we will change. We won’t be exactly the same at age 70 as we were in our early twenties.

I know change is good and does good things in you and makes you grow and helps you better understand the world and sometimes you find things you like better than the things you didn’t want to change and all that great motivational stuff. I get it. I’m not disputing any of it. I know some people really love change. But sometimes all the change just makes me tired. Job changes, house changes, my children growing up in some kind of fast-forward mode…sometimes the world seems to be spinning and I’m trying to grab hold of all the precious moments and I get dizzy and I need to be still. And I need something to just BE THE SAME.

Enter God.

The constancy, the stability, the sure nature and character of God hems me in when the world does its best to undo me. God doesn’t change, and he doesn’t leave, and he doesn’t take his presence from me. I love him so very, very much. So when change is challenging or overwhelming, I look for him and nestle in. He meets me where I’m at and shows me how to navigate new waters with gentleness, grace, and love…and in his strength rather than my own.

I don’t know where you are walking today, whether in certainty or in a place of fluidity where you aren’t sure where something might land, but wherever you are, be encouraged that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His love, provision, grace, wisdom, presence, awareness, worthiness—they are the same day after day after day. He knows we can handle this crazy world because he is walking through it with us.

So as I enter into the summer and prepare for my oldest to go to middle school and my youngest to enter kindergarten, I pray I will do it with even more peace and grace than I had last year. I know I can manage as long as I’ve got God’s hands to hold on to, or rather, if I let him hold on to me. I don’t easily surrender to change in the world, but surrendering to my Lord and Savior is safe and good and totally okay with me.

He is my peace.

Thank you, Lord, for being that thing—that person—that steadfast cornerstone—that I can build my life on and trust that whatever shakes or changes or rolls or upends, for good or for bad, you are there for me every single second, every single moment. You never leave, never forsake. When I need a safe space to land or a safe place to pour out my heart or simply somewhere that is familiar, I have you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Amen.

 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.    James 1:17

God is not human, that he should lie,
    not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
    Does he promise and not fulfill?            Numbers 23:19

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.    Hebrews 13:8