Did you know that our sun is constantly changing?  It has varying levels of radiation, sunspots, flares, and all of the other solar activities that sooner or later have their effects on Earth’s weather, climate, and even the Northern Lights.  Not only do these levels vary, but they do so in something of a pattern, that is called a solar cycle.  These solar cycles have an average duration of about 11 years.

This cyclical pattern of constant change is something that I can relate to.  Just 11 years ago, I packed my pregnant wife and 5 children into our little red shuttle bus, and left New Jersey to begin a new life in Southern Indiana.  Since we had never met anyone from where we would settle, and had never been there either, we weren’t sure what our lives would be like when we arrived.  We had signed a 3 month lease on a house, and I had made preparations to be employable by getting my Indiana teacher’s licence, but I didn’t have a job lined up.  We didn’t have a lot of answers for our friends and family who had many of the questions that we had asked ourselves about our plans, and perhaps our sanity.  We just didn’t know.

What we did know, rather I should say WHO we did know, was the One who did know exactly what our lives would be like when we moved to Southern Indiana 11 years ago.  We didn’t have to know the answers.  Like a child with her dad, we just had to know whose hand we were holding as we kept walking.

As we trusted Jesus through multiple additions to our family, changes in careers, buying and selling and building of houses, not only our family, but also our family business has become established here in Southern Indiana and we could not be more pleased.  We could not have predicted the success, no not even the existence, of Goat Milk Stuff as we pulled out of the church parking lot to head west eleven years ago.  The number of changes in our lives through that time has been too many to count.  The pace of those changes has been nearly constant.  There have been storms, and flares and the intensity has varied, and sooner or later, they have all had effects on our lives.  It has been an unbelievable eleven years.  I’m thankful to have been holding Jesus’ hand- perhaps gripping would be a better description- throughout that time.  I can only imagine, or maybe I can’t, what the next 11 years may bring.  The solar cycle continues on.  Its effects will be felt by your family and mine.  I can’t predict what those effects will be, but may I encourage you?  You can know the One who can.  Hold on to Him.