Not long ago, my grandson would ask me several times a day if I would play table tennis with him. We invented all kinds of rules, talked trash, laughed at each other’s antics, and even had serious talks as the ball pinged and ponged over the net.
But this past weekend, he didn’t ask me once; he was engaged with his friends. And that is how subtly our lives change. In reality, time has never stood still. Life is an ever-spiraling whirl of change. The good old days were always moving towards a new order.
Growing up in a bustling family of ten, I watched my older sisters wed and my older brothers embark on new journeys—one to college, another to work. I learned to drive and eventually set off to college myself, dreams in tow.
As the spiral of change continued, my father passed away. I married, started a family, and embraced a calling as a pastor. I felt the weight of loss a second time when my brother departed this life, and then my mother too.
My ministry was rocked by seismic shifts, and divorce reshaped my path. In the aftermath, I was blessed with fresh spiritual vision and a radiant new love who brought light and joy into my life. Our family expanded as we welcomed grandchildren into our world and relished the inexplicable joy they brought. Then our family changed once more as another brother departed this earthly realm. And last year, family and friends from all stages of my life gathered to commemorate my forty years of pastoral ministry. It was a grand celebration of God’s grace expressed through the natural order of change.
“To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Let us regard change not as an intruder, but as a familiar companion we’ve known all our lives. May we embrace it with faith, grace, and hope, just as I know that ‘Ping Pong with Pop Pop’ will always be part of the tapestry of my grandson’s life, even as it expands.
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