I have a favorite children’s book entitled Tuck Everlasting. It weaves an interesting tale of “what if?” What if there really was a Fountain of Youth? What if we could pick a perfect age and stop aging forever at that point?

After the first couple of chapters, it sounds pretty appealing and the ten-year-old students to whom I always read it loved the thought of being 16 or 21 or 25 forever. What could be better??

“What could be worse?” is the point of the book. Without change there is no growth; without growth there is no life. According to some geometric law I learned a long time ago, then, without change there is no life. Change is the process of becoming whatever it is God wants me to become. The last thing I want to do is try to stop that process. That’s where real life, abundant life, is found.

I’ve just come through a painful season of change that has landed a born and bred Midwestern girl in the Pacific Northwest. On Tuesday I go to work doing a new job in a new town with new colleagues – the change will continue for months to come. I don’t pretend the ongoing change will be easy, but nonetheless, I welcome it. It means there’s a life in progress.