Waiting for Change

I'm ready for fall.

I'm ready for brisk morning walks, the leaves to turn, and all things cozy. I'm ready for cool mornings, warm coffee, and the feeling that fall has finally arrived. And yet, here we are, another 90-degree day in NC, still waiting.

It's a small thing, really. A change in temperature. A shift in the season. But it has me thinking about how hard it is to wait for change when you are ready for it to come.

Because right now, I'm waiting for change in other areas of my life, too. In a community I care deeply about, there are things that need to be different. Things that could be better. Things that should be better by now.

And waiting is hard.

I work with leaders, organizations, and systems that want to change. Often, they can see what isn't working. They can envision what is possible. They may even know what needs to happen next. But knowing change is needed and actually moving through change are two very different things.

Systems resist change. The familiar, even when it isn't working, can feel safer than the uncertainty of something new. The devil you know is often easier to live with than the devil you don't.

This is where leadership is truly tested.

Some of the most important work of leadership happens in the space between recognizing the need for change and actually seeing it happen. It happens when the path forward is uncertain, when progress feels painfully slow, and when we have done what we know to do and are still waiting.

This is where hope matters.

Not hope as the certainty that things will get better. Not hope as the promise that the path will be easy or that change will happen on our timeline.

Hope is the courage to keep believing that what we do matters.

That the path we are on matters. That the convictions we hold matter. That the change we are working toward matters, even when we cannot yet see it taking shape.

The greatest leaders are not those who never face adversity. They are the ones who, in the face of adversity, refuse to let it have the final word. They do not let the difficulty of a unchanging season convince them that the work is not worth doing.

So, yes, I'm still waiting for fall. And in other parts of my life, I'm waiting, too.

As I write this, still wearing my summer clothes, I notice a small spot of red against an otherwise green landscape.

Change is moving. Even when it feels slow. Even when we are still waiting for evidence that the things we are working toward are possible.

And maybe that is the reminder we need in the seasons when change feels impossibly far away. We cannot always see what is shifting beneath the surface. We cannot always know when our efforts will take hold or when the change we are working toward will come. But we can continue to believe that our convictions matter, that our efforts matter, and that we matter.

Hope is found in the space between what is and what could be—in the conviction that the work still matters, even while we wait.