a season of transition...again
Our three year tour in Jordan is coming to an end in a few months, and I find myself back in a place which is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time-- a season of transition. I once told a friend that as a family which moves every one to three years, the only thing that we could predict about our lives is that there will always be change. My blog address uses the moniker, "Life in Transition," which I thought appropriately summed up both the themes and the general trend of our life as a family. Yet in time, as I listened to my writing, I stopped using this title. Instead, the banner over all of my actual entries reads "Beauty from Ashes," a phrase borrowed from Isaiah 61. Though we still live in the midst of repeated seasons of transition, I want to see past this more surface reality towards Christ's deeper end goal for me, which is not merely change, but transformation. Redemption. Beauty.
It is not an easy thing to look change in the eye and see past what seems to be apparent and irreversible loss. Loss of local community. Loss of orientation. Loss of friendships that are tangible, present. Loss of familiarity. There is a great and inevitable requirement to leave something behind.
Leaving something behind, however, is not the end goal or, as I mentioned earlier, the only predictable aspect of our lives. As I begin my ritual of sifting through our possessions-- through vanity closet shelves, clothing drawers, craft bins, closets and bookshelves, my whole life is being shaken, weighed and measured. All things of value, of worth, will be kept. The things which truly matter remain. Everything else is thrown in the trash, given away or sold. This is just the practical reality of my life. I cannot keep everything. Our weight limit demands that choices be made in what is truly important. And I cannot afford to keep carrying around things which only take up space, but do not have true value.
How do I determine what has value and what does not? Well, with clothing, the old adage that if you haven't worn it in two years, it has to go, bears some authority with me. And I will encourage my children to give away or sell the toys that they have outgrown or don't use. As a result of living amid a context where the need for material support to help alleviate poverty, whether within the local Jordanian community or resulting from widespread displacement of Syrian families, I feel more compelled to keep less and give away more.
These things are easier for me to relinquish. What is substantially more challenging is letting of relationship, of community. Again, my life is being shaken, and in the days and weeks leading to our departure, I am discovering which relationships will remain-- those which have genuine, lasting value. This process is both painful and gratifying because in my experience, I have wondered at friendships which I thought were deep suddenly drop off and then other times, meeting a new friend towards the end of our tour and becoming connected deeper in a short time. I am reminded that true friendship is not commonplace, nor is it something to control, but rather a gift and one that needs freedom as a means to grow and thrive.
So in this time of change, there is grieving as a result of loss and yet there is hope. Ultimately and one day, my life will be shaken to the extent that all that is left is me, stripped of all my possessions and community and standing before my Creator and my God. But before this time, I live in the valley where I experience fragments of both dark and light. The darkness is loss, the light is the beauty and redemption I have as a child of the living God and the joy that " comes in the morning." Change is not death, change is an opportunity for His good.
A wise friend once told me to find a spot of sunshine and sit in it for time. My kids love the cartoon character Garfield and I am reminded of a comic strip in which he finds a spot to sleep just in front of a window where the sun is streaming in. The look of contentment and joy is all the more gratifying to see in the life of a cat characterized by sarcasm and want for more. To bring things back to life in transition, or rather now, beauty from ashes, my struggle has always been how long to grieve what I've left behind and when to put the former things behind me to step ahead into our new community. There is no methodology to this, yet I would rather cry with friends then after I've left when I am by myself. Taking the time to grieve with friends, accompanied with choosing to celebrate and affirm those friendships helps me eventually come to a place of closure. Not shutting the door to future friendship, but accepting that friendship will perhaps continue, but in a markedly different way.
Our hope, ultimately, is not in community or people or possessions. If it were, the reality of standing before my Creator would evoke despair of inordinate measure. All of these things, at the right time and in the right amount, add richness and color to our lives. Yet when one is standing in the temporary place of homelessness, between communities and the active working out of one's vocation in a place, true fullness comes from remembering that relationship to Christ is my true home and His love is actively carrying me through the "between times," wherever they may be.
So as I mark off days on my calendar, I pray that I would number the days of this transition time aright and would embrace both the loss and the fullness that accompanies the life of a Christ follower. For just as we fellowship in his sufferings, we also fellowship in His glory.
soli deo gloria
It is not an easy thing to look change in the eye and see past what seems to be apparent and irreversible loss. Loss of local community. Loss of orientation. Loss of friendships that are tangible, present. Loss of familiarity. There is a great and inevitable requirement to leave something behind.
Leaving something behind, however, is not the end goal or, as I mentioned earlier, the only predictable aspect of our lives. As I begin my ritual of sifting through our possessions-- through vanity closet shelves, clothing drawers, craft bins, closets and bookshelves, my whole life is being shaken, weighed and measured. All things of value, of worth, will be kept. The things which truly matter remain. Everything else is thrown in the trash, given away or sold. This is just the practical reality of my life. I cannot keep everything. Our weight limit demands that choices be made in what is truly important. And I cannot afford to keep carrying around things which only take up space, but do not have true value.
How do I determine what has value and what does not? Well, with clothing, the old adage that if you haven't worn it in two years, it has to go, bears some authority with me. And I will encourage my children to give away or sell the toys that they have outgrown or don't use. As a result of living amid a context where the need for material support to help alleviate poverty, whether within the local Jordanian community or resulting from widespread displacement of Syrian families, I feel more compelled to keep less and give away more.
These things are easier for me to relinquish. What is substantially more challenging is letting of relationship, of community. Again, my life is being shaken, and in the days and weeks leading to our departure, I am discovering which relationships will remain-- those which have genuine, lasting value. This process is both painful and gratifying because in my experience, I have wondered at friendships which I thought were deep suddenly drop off and then other times, meeting a new friend towards the end of our tour and becoming connected deeper in a short time. I am reminded that true friendship is not commonplace, nor is it something to control, but rather a gift and one that needs freedom as a means to grow and thrive.
So in this time of change, there is grieving as a result of loss and yet there is hope. Ultimately and one day, my life will be shaken to the extent that all that is left is me, stripped of all my possessions and community and standing before my Creator and my God. But before this time, I live in the valley where I experience fragments of both dark and light. The darkness is loss, the light is the beauty and redemption I have as a child of the living God and the joy that " comes in the morning." Change is not death, change is an opportunity for His good.
A wise friend once told me to find a spot of sunshine and sit in it for time. My kids love the cartoon character Garfield and I am reminded of a comic strip in which he finds a spot to sleep just in front of a window where the sun is streaming in. The look of contentment and joy is all the more gratifying to see in the life of a cat characterized by sarcasm and want for more. To bring things back to life in transition, or rather now, beauty from ashes, my struggle has always been how long to grieve what I've left behind and when to put the former things behind me to step ahead into our new community. There is no methodology to this, yet I would rather cry with friends then after I've left when I am by myself. Taking the time to grieve with friends, accompanied with choosing to celebrate and affirm those friendships helps me eventually come to a place of closure. Not shutting the door to future friendship, but accepting that friendship will perhaps continue, but in a markedly different way.
Our hope, ultimately, is not in community or people or possessions. If it were, the reality of standing before my Creator would evoke despair of inordinate measure. All of these things, at the right time and in the right amount, add richness and color to our lives. Yet when one is standing in the temporary place of homelessness, between communities and the active working out of one's vocation in a place, true fullness comes from remembering that relationship to Christ is my true home and His love is actively carrying me through the "between times," wherever they may be.
So as I mark off days on my calendar, I pray that I would number the days of this transition time aright and would embrace both the loss and the fullness that accompanies the life of a Christ follower. For just as we fellowship in his sufferings, we also fellowship in His glory.
soli deo gloria
I actually read some of this aloud to David. Wonderful writing! :)
ReplyDeleteWendi