“I will never move back to this town.” I whispered it as my parents packed the minivan with my college dorm supplies. I was ready to leave and wasn’t going to look back.

And for a long time, I didn’t.

Seasons changed. I changed, too.

I found myself shifting and growing into new versions of myself. I made mistakes and learned lessons that only come with figuring life out as you go. I sat in lecture halls and realized the world was bigger than I ever realized.

I learned. I unlearned. I relearned.

I graduated. Had a job with my very own cubicle. Got married. Became a mother. Bought a house. Moved. Moved again.

I reconsidered things. I looked at life and all its beautiful, terrible glory from different angles. I prayed with an open heart. Sometimes, I was surprised at the miracle. Other times, I was heartbroken at the silence. I read books and kept reading them — novels, memoirs, and how-to’s. 

My world expanded, and so did I.

Change is obvious when we’re in a transitional moment — graduation, marriage, divorce, birth of a child, retirement, diagnosis — take your pick. But we’re always changing, whether we like it or not. Our bodies quite literally renew themselves over time. Skin replaces itself through a natural process every 27 days. We are not the exact same people today that we were a month ago.

As summer will soon give way to fall, no matter what season of life you’re in, what would happen if you approach this transitional time as an invitation to be transformed in the love of God?

We are all capable of change. Every minute, every second of the day, we’re becoming.

So the question is: Who are you becoming?

What have you made up your mind about? Where do you get your news? Who do you interact with who doesn’t look or think like you?

Do you listen to learn or to help craft your argument?

In fourth grade, my teacher invited us to grab our three-ring binders (mine was of the Looney Toons variety) to create what she called our Life-Long Notebook. She helped us take loose-leaf paper and her pre-printed tabs to create an organized place to add our observations about the newly-built butterfly garden, our wonderings about the world, and our hopes for ourselves. She encouraged us to stay curious and open not just in our classroom but wherever our lives took us.

My first college internship was at a local newspaper. My editor, then in her early 40s (I shudder to admit to thinking she was quite old at the time), told me that she stuck around day after day because she was always learning something. She met new people, asked new questions, and learned new things.

You don’t have to be an eager ten-year-old or a seasoned editor at the paper to be a life-long learner. 

A commitment to learning about the world, the people in it, and the God who made it all is a cornerstone of a faithful life. We can trust God with our wonderings because God gave us that spirit of curiosity in the first place. It’s when Christians refuse to learn and grow that we get into dangerous situations.

I’m not the same person I was five years ago, and I hope that in five years, I’ll be a different person than I am now. I don’t want to alter the fundamentals of who I am but want to grow fully into who God created me to be. I want to keep learning – to be, as Romans 12:2 says, transformed by the renewing of my mind. I don’t want to do this to accumulate more knowledge but to more fully love God and love my neighbors as myself.

Spiritual transformation is not always comfortable, but it is sanctifying. Our spiritual walks with Christ are ongoing. We don’t stop learning the vastness and fullness of God, of our world, and of ourselves the day we say a certain prayer or hit a specific milestone.

When I read my Bible, I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, opening doors and going down rabbit holes, often finding more questions than answers. The more I learn, the more I wonder. The more I wonder, the more I learn. A life walking with Christ is comforting yet often confounding. The more we embrace a posture of Christian curiosity, the more our worlds get, as Lewis Caroll put it, curiouser and curiouser.

You are allowed to change your mind. You don’t have to draw lines in the sand and dig in your heels.

Take it from me: After fifteen years away, I began dreaming of moving back to my hometown.

I changed.

And by the grace of God, I will continue to shift and change with the seasons, knowing that in all of my shades of becoming, the steadfast love of Christ never ceases.

As we prepare to bid farewell to summer and shift into fall, may you stay curious and live open-heartedly, forming deeper connections with yourself, your neighbor, and the One who breathes every season into existence.

Find reflections and prayers for every season in Kayla’s new book Every Season Sacred.

Listen to Kayla’s devotion below or find the (in)courage podcast on your favorite app!

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