Transitions

Last week we celebrated Jim’s 65^th birthday. This week we transitioned into another season: autumn in the northern hemisphere and spring for the southern hemisphere. While I wait for hot days to move out and colder days to move in, somewhere, someone else in the world waits for snow to melt and for warmth to arrive on a gentle breeze. There are times when a season changes suddenly and dramatically, other times a change of season moves in gradually. We live where autumn never makes a grand entrance and I really have to pay attention to notice the early arrival of the season.

Are you a bit like me, finding yourself thinking as the seasons change, “I can’t wait for life to get back to normal”? Then I check myself. What is it I really want to go back to? God is doing a new thing. Do I trust God in this strange time, trust everything is under His control and His eternal plan will not fail?

Shelly Miller writes in her new book, Searching for Certainty, words to challenge my wishful thinking to go back to normal. “When uncertainty triggers the fear of scarcity, we grasp on to the familiar as comfort. Hoarding is often a first response to forecasts for which we have no control. . . . If we are honest, most of us will admit that we long for certainty more than the uncertain new things God has in mind for us.”

Draped over the back of Jim’s recliner is a quilt. This quilt, made for us when we married by a few women who attended our church, is patched together in a pattern called Transition. After the quilt was pieced, sandwiched with batting and backing, bound and quilted, it was displayed in the church foyer a few weeks before our wedding. On Sundays, many hands tied knots in the threads pulled through the beautiful fabrics and many heads bent over in prayer for us. Transition, an appropriate quilt block since we were making dramatic changes in our lives to get married.

And over these past nine years of marriage much has changed. There have been losses, unexpected hardship, and delightful surprises. In all, when I have been willing to surrender – to consent to what God has allowed – even the most difficult experiences brought good into our lives and to go back to the way it was would be to lose all that was gained. Shelly Miller continues by saying, “In fear, we can miss the obvious – that your uncertainty is God’s opportunity to reveal his great love for you.”

I sometimes become afraid. Don’t you? The world is transitioning and I do not recognize it. So much has changed – some for the worse and some for the better. People want change and often the requests for change are viable but sometimes the means undermines the desire. Groups of people being fought for are often overlooked in the fray. Are we fighting to win something or to truly change how we treat one another? These are thoughts rattling around in my head when I feel alarmed by the violent reactions, when I feel afraid and confused. Some days I feel overwhelmed by the anger and hate, by news that seems hopeless.

In her timely and relevant book, Searching for Certainty, Shelly Miller speaks into my difficulty. “Transitions are rife with awkward, uncomfortable, and offensive details that make the promise of a new season a mockery of hope. . . . Overexposure [as in photography] is defined as too much light shed on the topic. Spiritually speaking, excessive media coverage headlining wealth of bad news makes it difficult to discern God’s presence. And overexposure to bad news often leads to apathy. Like the Israelites, we begin to paint the future through the lens of what we don’t have.”

I don’t have answers or know what new normal will evolve. All I know is I have people around me, people whose lives I can share the hope of Christ. I live in a diverse community and this is the space in which I need to grow in love – these are the people I need to embrace. I have to begin here and it is really the only thing I know to do besides pray and vote. My hope is not in government but in God. To live in hope when surrounded by so much despair is to live by faith. Minnie Louise Haskins wrote these words, a picture of walking in faith and hope.

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put thine hand into the hand of God. That shall be to thee better than light and safer than a known way.” M. L. Haskins

I reach up into the darkness and take His hand as we transition into an unknown season. I hope you will join me. We need not despair; the darkness does not overcome the Light.

Planning For Sustainable Dreams

 

The summer break is over. I only know this because I asked the teenager next door when she started back to school. The middle school around the block is silent. There is nothing indicating school is in session. I usually hear announcements, the Pledge of Allegiance, and loud music throughout the day. I’m not sure what the music has to do with education but in our neighborhood it is a sign school has begun. It’s been a long time since I’ve had school-aged children in my home but still the rhythm of my life wraps itself around the first day of school. This is a signal I am in transition; it’s a new season.

September is for me what January is for others. The beginning of the school year I reorder my life; it is a summons to take a hard left on this journey. When school supplies are advertised in the grocery ads, I am invited to begin again. This year I am a bit behind and am thrown off kilter for a couple of months. I have been on an unplanned hiatus from writing and posting on my blog. Writing has been difficult throughout the whole COVID-19 season. So many changes and not enough time to recover equilibrium. I am a slow processor. Change requires recalculation. Lots of changes requires lots of recalculating. All of us have been doing a good bit of recalculating. For a slow processor, as you can imagine, I can get stuck like a scratched record during lots of change and need a little bump to move from skipping in my head to humming a song.

It’s been a slow start. I write and scrap it, then I write some more. I have struggled to complete more than a few coherent paragraphs. I have doubted myself, my purpose and the value of writing a blog. It comes down to this: I enjoy writing, I feel a call to write, and for the those who are uplifted or encouraged by words I have strung together, it is worth it. It helps to talk with other creatives who have limped along through such a season with little to show for it.

I haven’t given enough value to the process. Just like Sabbath rest. This will make sense in a few sentences so please hang in there with me. For years I have studied and practiced Sabbath rest. But recently I read Dan Allender’s book, Sabbath: The Ancient Practices, and was smacked with the reality that I haven’t planned for the Sabbath. Not really. I haven’t planned for a time of celebration and delight in His presence. I just stop working, so I have missed a lot of the real meaning of Sabbathing. It has become the same way with writing. I work at writing, I learn what other authors do to keep going, but I haven’t really planned for writing long term. It is planning for sustainability.

But I’m gently transitioning to another season with Autumn Spice (dōTERRA essential oil) wafting from the diffuser in the kitchen. I listen to music that reminds me Autumn trips to southern Missouri. It’s an invitation to move into the next season with a map – a well prayed over and thought out plan for

writing. It makes me nervous; with a plan comes greater commitment. I am in! How about you? What is it that you want more of but you’ve not made space for it? What dreams would you like to make come true but you haven’t planned for them. It requires discipline and the ability to know how and when to say “no” so you can say “yes” to the one

thing you long to invest in. Join me; let’s move forward with renewed commitment and a plan well prayed over about how to best to use our gifts and follow our dreams.