“My life is transitioning from glory to gut-wrenching glory these days. Life just isn’t getting easier, although I’ve convinced myself that it should. I feel strangled by the transition. I can’t seem to get comfortable. No matter how I try to distract my mind from it, I feel it closing tightly. It hurts the more it clenches its cold fingers around my neck.” — Journal entry, September 9.
So the time is here again. Transition. New places, faces, and need of so many new… graces? Ugh. That was corny. And yes, I’m actually this dramatic and poetic when I write in my journal.
It got real on Sunday. Let me preface by saying I’m a minimizer by nature. I never want to exaggerate my pain, always convincing myself that it could be worse and I’m fine; but I finally had enough that day. Everything that had happened to me over the course of the past several weeks hit me like a bag of bricks. What I had chosen to suppress and ignore bubbled up into a flood that crashed through the levees of my subconscious and spilled over into my reality. Fresh starts hurt. Anyone that says anything different is lying through their teeth.
While the floodgates finally opened and all the hurt was being felt at once, I recognized the beauty of what was transpiring. The only thing I had to cling to was our Father. While the feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, and uncertainty that often come in seasons of transition were hurting me, I realized that I couldn’t do anything except give it to Him. And let me tell you, helplessness is a prime position for transformation.
If we leave pain unattended, it strangles us. Eventually, it will destroy us. If we hand it to the care of our Maker and Lover of our Soul, it stretches us, and we can give and receive more than we dared to think possible. When we trust that the Spirit is indwelling and that Jesus is interceding, where else should our pain go except into His loving hands? That’s exactly where it’s meant to be, and our present suffering can’t compare to the glory that will be revealed.
Things don’t get better overnight; we wish they did. But He loves us, cares for us, speaks truth to us, cheers us on, reminds us that we aren’t alone…and it’s gonna be okay. Jesus made sure of that. 🙂