Freedom to Change

In an effort to ready our house for selling, I decided that the baby, er...Miniature Schnauzer, gates needed to come down.  The three gates have been a mainstay in raising the puppies this past year and have helped to contain them to a manageable portion of our home.  But, there is a time for all of us to evolve and mature and have a little freedom to find, grow and explore new things.

... so the gates came down.

Copernicus, just barely over one year old, took to the newfound freedom quite fast.  He quickly went off to find his new boundaries without any hesitation or reservation.  He loved the newness of it all and then came back to get his brother to join him.  Copernicus then began to entice Newton into a game of chase so that he too could discover the great new space.  He loved the change and wanted his brother to feel the same way!

Copernicus

But, baby brother had some trepidation.  It was questionable how Newton, now just a mere six months old, would handle so much space albeit he's the more adventurous and wild one of the two.

It took him awhile to realize that the gates were down and he was surprisingly more cautious than his brother.  He kept looking back into the previously gated space as though he really wasn't sure he wanted to find out what was outside of the gates.  He wanted the new without leaving the old.

... and isn't that just like us?  

Sometimes we engage the change in our lives without hesitation and just drive right into the unknown like Copernicus did.  Then, there are those times when we just can't seem to push ourselves out of the comfort zone and into something new like Newton experienced.

Change is such a crazy mixture of  the "stop" and "go" that we experience throughout the movement of seasons within our lives.

For Newton, it took his brother's game of chase before he went into the new areas.  He needed the security of retaining something of the old with him as he went into the new.     

Once in the new spaces, he ran and ran and played with his brother and reveled in all of the fun! Sprawled out and panting he landed at my feet as if to say, "Thanks for all of this freedom!"

I hope that after all of the seasons of change and the maturing and the growing and the refining, I will resemble Newton's stance:  a smile on my face, totally out of breath, looking heavenward and shouting, "Thanks for all of this freedom!"

I vow to take all that comes my way today and delight in the freedom to change.  Won't you?