After arising one mid-December morning, I quickly noted that it had turned cold, much colder, during the night but the grass on the lawn was still green.

By noon, it was white, and a short time after the quick freeze, it was brown. What a change!

Observing that unexpected change in the pattern of the weather, I remembered that change in life is more than a weather-related phenomenon.

Nothing stays the same. Change is everywhere, and it is in everything. What is at the moment doesn’t necessarily remain.

In life, things may — and often do — change rapidly. What was yesterday may not be today, and what is today may not be tomorrow.

In 1847, Henry F. Lyte got it right when he wrote, “Change…in all I see.”

Sometimes change is hardly noticeable, and it has little significance, but it is still there. At other times, it is enormous and dramatically noticeable; you can’t miss it. Such change has a tremendous impact on almost everyone and everything.

Change can, and often does, come rapidly and unexpectedly. I know, for I have experienced it. I will never forget Sunday, Nov. 21, 1996.

That was a beautiful day, and that Sunday I did what I wanted to do and enjoyed it immensely.

At the end of that pleasant day, I went to bed early expecting a good night of rest that would bring renewed energy for the work of the new week that was ahead, but in about an hour, I was in the hospital where I was diagnosed with a heart attack that led, on Friday, Nov. 26, to quintuple bypass surgery.

Now, that’s rapid and unexpected change that impacts life and, forever makes everything different.

About 2,000 years ago in a world of change, some Wise Men from the East followed a star to Bethlehem in Judea where they knelt before a baby who had been born in a cattle stall.

There, they found a reliable guiding force to direct them in a ever-changing world. Since that moment, countless others have made the same discovery.

Howard Coop is a retired minister, author and religion columnist that contributes regularly to The Jessamine Journal. He can be reached at howardcooop@ kudu4u.com.