08/12/2026
A memory popped up in my head this morning. In mid July 1964, I got on a city bus in front of the YWCA on Dearborn Street in Chicago. I was going State and Randolph and transferring to another bus to go to a building across from the Northwest Train Station. It was my first day of work for the Social Security Chicago Payment Center.
A big change for a young college graduate that grew up in a rural community of about 600 people. I remember looking at the fellow passengers on the bus. Many were reading newspapers. No one was acknowledging anyone else. I wondered is this the rest of my life alone on a bus.
It was for seven years. In those seven years, I had moved to an apartment, but I still rode a city bus to and from work. I had been promoted twice at work, I made friends, I had rose moments, and scary moments. But it wasn’t the rest of my life.
Sixty-two years later, I am sitting in an apartment in a senior living center waking up wondering is this the rest of my life. So much has happened in those sixty-two years. In 1971, I went on blind date. That really changed the rest of my life. Three months and three days later, I married my blind date, Clifford A Anderson. A lot of things and changes have happened since then. But I have not faced them alone like I did on that first city bus ride in Chicago sixty-two years ago alone.
I walk the hallways daily praying Bible passages. I know God’s presence in my life. I have a daily prayer list. On that list, I have people whose lives are in transition due to health, people coming into their lives, and people moving out of their lives. I have started to realize that I and every person I know should be on that list. Our lives are always in transition.
Clifford being with me has helped me through many transitions. However, the greatest help in transitions is knowing God and what He has for me in my final transition. One of my favorite hallway passages is:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3–5, ESV, https://ref.ly/1Pe1.3-5;esv).
I love the word, ready, in that passage. I do not have to pack anything for the transition in that last move to my salvation “ready to be revealed.” I will leave behind all that I have treasured here on earth. For that hope all I had to do was believe in Jesus (John 3:16). Believing has changed and is still changing my life.
In about an hour I will go upstairs and share breakfast with others whose lives are in transition. What makes the transitions in your life easier is having God with you. He is the permanence in your life and will be a part of the rest of your life, even after the final transition. May you be aware of His presence.
By unknown
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the…
