I am sure I am not the only one who goes into my closet and pulls out a favorite skirt that I haven’t worn for awhile only to discover that it doesn’t fit. Yikes! The crunchy, clunky feeling that comes with trying to make the skirt work by pulling it one way or another, adding a decorative scarf at the waist, or wearing a longer tunic might work on some days, but the problem remains that I know it doesn’t fit and I don’t feel good in it. As a result, I am not my best self when I have tried to engineer it to work somehow. I am also so focused on what is wrong with me that I sometimes cannot see others accurately.

Trying on things that do not fit brings our minds back to Cinderella and the glass slipper and the horrid, jealous stepsisters who insist that their over-sized feet can fit into Cinderella’s glass slipper.

When we are dealing with clothing, we end up with some basic choices. We can get back to the diet and exercise we promised ourselves we would do or we can buy new clothes. In either case, when something doesn’t fit it requires us to look at ourselves more honestly and make a choice.

It would be fairly straightforward if clothing were the only thing that might not fit.

There are habits, lifestyles, hobbies, relationships, and even ministries that might not fit for us or at least might not fit for us for the season we are in. Too often, we handle these much like the clothes solutions. We try to make them work while at the same time knowing that we are spinning our wheels and putting energy where our hearts do not connect. If we cannot look at the truth and make a healthy choice, we might decide to simply drop out, drift away, or give up. Sometimes we feel frozen in fear or caged and are unable to make a choice or refuse to do so.

The truth is that much as we would like things to be predictable and not change in many areas, that is not reality. Change is a constant in this life. It happens with our bodies, our jobs, our families, our friends, our lifestyles, our hobbies, our ministries, and our churches. Some of those changes we welcome and some we cringe about or even hate. It would help if we could remember the truth that change is continuous in this life. That doesn’t make us bad or good. It means we are alive and human. It also means that Christ within us has provision for us in the midst of change whether it is good or not so good.

In each case, change gives us an opportunity. It gives us the opportunity to try something new, reinvent ourselves, grow, develop, and trust at deeper levels. Whether we see it as an opportunity or get stuck depends on what lens we use to look at it and whether we are relying on ourselves or relying on the One who knows and loves us most.

One excellent example comes to mind. When I was serving on a church staff, a woman came into my office that was new to our church. She had looked over the list of ministries operating at the time and shared with me that none of them fit, none of them connected with her heart or passion. My response to her was to bring me a vision of what might fit for her. When she came back to my office sometime later, she was bubbling with excitement as she told me about a new ministry she sensed the Lord was showing her. There was no question this DID fit for her. The Lord used it to grow her in incredible ways and also used it for His Kingdom to create something that had not existed previously.

This example points to how incredibly awesome our opportunities can be when change comes or something doesn’t fit, if we look to the One who knows us best and loves us most and risk following Him.