So, Facebook.

That digital attic where old yearbooks go to haunt us.

Recently, a ghost from my high school past materialized in my inbox – someone who, shall we say, majored in Making My Teenage Years A Special Kind Of Hell. I’d long since mentally filed away those four years under “Mission Accomplished, Escape Velocity Achieved,” largely due to the daily dose of torment she and her ilk so generously provided. Imagine my surprise, then, when this very architect of my adolescent angst asked to sign my yearbook back in the day, and (bless my then-optimistic heart) I signed hers.

I handed over my precious repository of awkward teenage memories, and it returned with the utterly, tragically cliché: “Don’t ever change!”

Even now, three decades later, I can feel the phantom eye-roll.

Honestly, didn’t they get it?

Isn’t changing the whole blinkin’ point?

If we’re not changing, we’re not growing; we’re just…marinating.

In a desperate, slightly passive-aggressive bid to counteract this stagnant sentiment, my go-to yearbook inscription became something like: “May you always keep changing and growing so much you barely recognize yourself in 20 years!” I definitely scrawled that into her book, a tiny act of rebellion mixed with a surprising dash of sincerity.

Fast forward to last week.

Literally 19 hours after I returned to Facebook.

Her message landed, and it was a doozy.

The TL;DR: “I’m sorry. And thank you.”

She owned her past behavior and then, incredibly, thanked me for that yearbook challenge. She’d spent the intervening decades, it turns out, actively trying to grow beyond the person she’d been.

This led to a surprisingly profound conversation about life’s seasons, about the things we outgrow, and the peculiar shame we attach to endings. She confessed to feeling like a failure because ventures she thought would be “forever” had concluded, and relationships she’d envisioned lasting a lifetime had, well, not.

And that’s the kicker, isn’t it?

This bizarre, deeply ingrained notion that if something doesn’t achieve “forever” status, it’s a failure. A thriving business that brings joy and prosperity for a solid decade, only to close when the owner decides to explore a new passion? “Oh, what a shame it failed.” A marriage that fosters growth, happiness, and mutual respect for many wonderful years, but eventually transitions into a loving, equitable separation because, well, people and circumstances evolve? “Another failed marriage.”

Excuse my French, but what a load of horsehockey.

This idea that permanence is the ultimate benchmark of success is, frankly, warped.

Think about it.

Nature itself is a masterclass in glorious impermanence. Seasons turn, flowers bloom and fade, rivers change course. Are they failures? Or are they dynamic, evolving, and beautiful precisely because they are not static?

Most things in life have a natural lifespan. Hobbies capture our fervent attention for a few years, then we move on. Business ventures serve their purpose and then conclude. Friendships ebb and flow, sometimes deepening over decades, other times fulfilling a specific need for a season and then respectfully receding. Even our most cherished philosophies and beliefs aren’t immune; they (hopefully!) continue to evolve, refine, and sometimes undergo radical transformation as we gather new experiences and insights.

And that’s not just okay; it’s essential.

It’s growth.

I’m feeling this keenly right now. I’m approaching the end of my current ministerial contract with a wonderful congregation. It’s been nearly three years, and the understanding was always that my role was finite – to bridge a gap until they found their next settled minister. There’s a certain sweetness to this ending, a sense of a chapter closing as it was meant to. It feels like typing “THE END” on the last page of a good book – satisfying, a mission fulfilled.

This stands in stark contrast to the last time I stepped away from full-time congregational ministry. That ending was… let’s just say less “satisfying conclusion” and more “chaotic, traumatic dumpster fire.” It left me feeling like I’d failed not just at ministry, but at life itself. The context I was in back then absolutely preached the gospel of “forever.” A successful minister was one who served from ordination until retirement or the grave, whichever came first. If you ‘left the work,’ as they so delicately put it, you were a pariah, a failure, someone who’d fumbled their divine calling.

And boy, did I internalize that.

For years.

Talk about a mind-bending experience – try dismantling a theology you preached for twelve years after realizing it no longer aligns with your deepest understanding of life, the universe, and everything.

It was a spectacular, ego-bruising “failure” by those old metrics.

But the most liberating theological revelation I’ve ever had is this: everything has a lifespan.

Jobs, relationships, passions, even deeply held callings and beliefs. Some are mayflies, some are ancient redwoods, but none are truly exempt from the flow of time and change. Embracing this doesn’t diminish the value of what was. It allows me to celebrate the twelve years I poured into that former ministry with the same sense of genuine accomplishment as I feel about my current, concluding one. It allows me to look in the mirror and say, “Well done, kid. You learned. You served. Now, let’s keep growing, keep changing, and see what beautiful, un-forever thing comes next.”

So, here’s to the incredible un-forevers.

Here’s to the rich experiences that shape us, even if they don’t last a lifetime. Here’s to defining success not by its infinite extension, but by its depth, its impact, and the growth it fosters along the way.

And if anyone tries to tell you “don’t ever change”? Politely (or not so politely) invite them to consider the alternative.