Loose Change

I’ve spent some time as of late pouring over a book written about Sir Charles Darwin and his theories on evolution. If you’re of the mind that such research is hazardous to my health as a Creationist you couldn’t be more incorrect. God Himself endowed me with this inquisitive mind and isn’t the least bit frightened by my need to explore all possible conclusions and explanations concerning the why's and how's of which I came to be. I don’t believe in the one true God as the author and finisher of my existence simply because I've ingested the contents of Genesis countless times, and conversely won’t be convinced my ancestors crawled from some primordial soup simply by reading the works of the world's most renowned theorist on the opposing view. My beliefs, like everyone else’s, are deeply rooted in faith. For whether you choose to believe it or not, it’s a matter of such either way. Empirical, undeniable proof for either side of the argument doesn’t exist. Either God is or He isn’t....you simply have Faith in one or the other.

But my diatribe today isn’t concerning such weighty matters as the existence of God or the Big Bang Theory. Frankly, I'm too weak for such a discussion from eating like a citizen of a third world nation for 6 weeks all in an effort to slide into a bridesmaids dress. I was simply struck by something Darwin said from an angle of new perspective.

It was 5 am....I had returned to my hotel room, removed my party dress and a thousand bobby pins from my hair .....everyone had at long last settled down and I was alone in the quiet. My little brother had just gotten married. I let my mind drift back over the events and memorable moments of the day and this quote floated in from the recesses of my memory where I was unaware I had even tucked it away: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

I have to tell you folks, ole Charlie got THAT one right. And nowhere is this theory more evidently true than in the arena of human relationships.....for here, evolution is inevitable.....without it, things simply cease. I thought of my brother and the new chapter he'd just written into his own existence and realized that even while I hadn’t been looking I had seen him evolve from a young boy full of mischief and wonder into a strong intelligent man of integrity and further still into a capable and willing husband. I thought of Amanda, his new bride, and how in a matter of months she'd evolved from a stranger to a friend and now into a sister.

Every relationship in my life has encountered Change.....chased by the emotional predators of Life we are forced into rabbit holes, underbrush and landscapes completely unfamiliar with anything we have ever experienced. We either grow the thick skin and sharp teeth necessary to reinvent all that we were into something even grander or we never learn to breathe under water. Parents begin as providers evolve into mentors and eventually into dependents of those once dependent on them. Friends become lovers that sometimes melt back to friends. Love is fluid and will follow and fill no matter what shape the container becomes. If we only had the insight to realize that as we become flexible in the winds of change, we bend our lives back over one another’s in new and intricate ways creating bonds infinitely stronger.

I lie there in the dark thinking of all the ways in which I feel my life shifting in new directions. I once saw Change as some to be leery of.....to approach with caution and apprehension. I pray now for the grace to see if for what it is, a chance to evolve into an even greater version of my truest self....a me that will not only survive, but one that will flourish.