This last week the supervisory staff of The Salvation Army Family & Community Services met for two days to flesh out the goals in our strategic plan. The issue of change was the theme: how we engage change as individuals and how we, as an agency, were moving into change. We came away with a unified, collaborative plan to move the work forward over the next year or two. It was exhausting but well worth the time away from the office.
This Saturday morning as I sit in the silence I begin to think about the season that I am in. As a backdrop to the retreat we used the verses from Ecclesiastes on change: “for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” Those words resound in my heart today as a harbinger of my new reality. As one for whom change is a way of life, I’m not exactly scared but I am curious.
When I fell the other week, I felt alone and broken. My weakness was not something that I enjoyed in any way, shape or form. Yet even in the midst of that pain and weakness, I realized my initial reaction of being alone was brought on by habit rather than reality. In the past I had been alone, for so many reasons. But that is no longer the case. Yes, I live alone and am not really a fan, but I have people who are present and active in my life. I am known and accepted. I am loved and wanted. These are all new realities for me. I am in a new time of life that for all its awesome beauty is a bit of a transition for me. I can no longer define life in the same manner as before. I need a new vocabulary.
I am having to navigate my way into what so many people consider normal, yet for me is as foreign as the land of Oz. The color is heightened; the companionship is unusual and unexpected but welcome; and the adventures are thrilling yet terrifying. Like the Tin Man, Scarecrow, or Lion I am having a hard time embracing what has been mine all along. Yet I am. I am embracing this belonging, even as my head spins.
There is a time for everything. Now is the time to belong, to embrace, to be known and to know.
This could take some adjusting.
Adventures of Walking as Jesus Walked 
Kim is only as alone as she allows herself to be but – KIM WILL NEVER BE ALONE! š Thanks to God and thanks to so many people God put in Kim’s life – and I’m so thankful Kim is aware of that!
True and yet not always true. There have been times, years in fact, where alone was the safest place for me. Overcoming those reasons and issues has been painful and liberating, but then you’ve seen that part. You’re one my people. š