How to Deal with Fear of Change

CHANGE 

When you hear this word or read this word where does your mind go? Does it excite you? Or does it put some fear into you?
 
I think for many of us we often fear change. Change can be scary, and it can come when we don’t expect it. Often we don’t understand why there is so much change. If we learned anything from 2020 I think we learned how quick the world can change. But, with that change it brought A LOT of FEAR.

Let’s go back in time to the day of change (for me personally) this day of “change” created a snowball effect for change in my life. It was March 13th, a Friday. It was the day of Nate and I’s bachelor / bachelorette party (YAY) but it was also the day I left the office at work due to COVID entering the US. My wedding was scheduled for April 4th, and week after week the snowball got bigger and bigger. CHANGE kept coming!
 
I was fearful, angry, annoyed, happy, sad, I think throughout this time I felt every single emotion. My wedding plans were changing by the second. I will never forget the day when our wedding was postponed. I cried and ran up to my office where I sat in my chair and I opened up my devotional and my Bible and I said Why God? What is your plan?
 
I feared what would happen but I knew I needed to embrace all that God was doing in my life and embrace His plan that was going to somehow be greater than I had ever dreamed.
 
I could write for ages about the months of March – August but that’s for a different day.
 
Do you fear change?
 
I struggle with change because I am Type A, and I plan everything out, think everything out, and I like to be prepared for anything that could happen. I always joke about being a Martha or a Mary and I am definitely a Martha. Example: My grandma and I always are early and we are always prepared for anything. Like we have to leave 30+ minutes before we have to be somewhere because who knows: you might get a flat tire, you might get stuck in traffic. We like to think of it all. It can be a blessing and a curse.
 
FEAR
 
Do you cringe when you read it? If so, this is for you.
 
“The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you in Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” – Matthew 28:5-7
We do not need to fear change, because God is making a new creation within that change. He has a plan in place and new things are on the horizon. If we cling to old ways and sameness, we are essentially resisting God’s work that he is doing within our lives. When we begin to let that fear sink and set in we need to remind ourselves to embrace all that Christ is doing in our life. Finding security in Christ alone.
 
In today’s world it is so easy to make an idol of routine, and finding security in your own boundaries that you have built for your life.
 
Let’s start by asking God to open our eyes so that we can see all that God has prepared us for in each day.
 
Fear and then turn into TRUST.
 
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17