“Suiting Out the Changes”

Many  years ago I remember hearing a fellow who would frequently say, “Suit out our changes,” when he prayed   I never really quite understood what he meant by that.  The nearest I can guess, I think he might have recognized the fact that change will occur in every life, and he wanted God to help us have a suitable response to those changes.

We lived in Shreveport for eleven years lacking just a few months.  It was a definitely a time of change.   It started with a change in my job description.  My primary job description no longer included delivering regular Sunday sermons from the pulpit.  I was now a family minister.  Even though I was designated by that title throughout my time in Shreveport, I actually went through so many changes in job description that nobody seemed to be able to keep up with what I was supposed to be doing – not even me. 

During that time, the church had four different pulpit ministers, three different youth ministers, and four different secretaries.  Somehow I managed to fly under the radar and stayed employed the entire time, although the last couple of years or so I was officially in “semi-retirement.”

The world was changing around us.  First there was the Y2K2 Scare which didn’t amount to anything, but generated a lot of talk.  We had a presidential election, and it was several weeks before we knew the outcome.  Then there were the coordinated terrorists attack on 9-11-2001.   The reality of it sort of came home to us, when we realized the president had been flown to Barksdale Air Force Base, less than twenty miles from our home.   Society, culture, and technology was changing all around us.  

            Back in the eighties, I was proud to be known as a “change agent.”  By the time we entered the twenty-first century there had been so much change that I couldn’t keep up with it.  When the church decided to make me an elder (and that was a big change right there) I think I went from being a change agent to a foot dragger.   I came into the twenty-first century kicking and screaming.

During the eleven years we were in Sheveport, we passed through a series of personal medical crises.  One of them got to the life threatening point a time or two.  Two of our children were divorced during that time. One remarried.  We really did need to be able to have our changes “suited out.” 

Then there was partial retirement and a part time job with a funeral home, which took me in a totally different direction from any employment experience I’d had previously.  Finally, we ended our time in Louisiana by entering full time retirement, although that actually lasted only three months.  It’s a good thing.  You need to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning.   I’ll have more to say on that subject later on.

If the fellow was talking about a suitable response to change when he asked the Lord to “suit out our changes,”  I would say we got the suit.  Antole France once said, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”   And so it is.