Transition

"Sometimes you have to believe God beyond what you can presently see." -Pete Wilson

I watch the plantain trees sway, the breeze a slow dance, the rain a welcome friend.  The sound of my two oldest in the distance, their squeals of delight as they forage through the darkened dirt for treasures and tiny critters.  Raindrops surely on their backs like tiny vessels of relief from the humidity.  My littlest tucked in his crib, breathing to the beat of the rain on the roof…unaware and unscathed by the changes in the weather.

Rain makes me feel nostalgic.  It makes me want to hurl a warm blanket about me, curl up with a warm cup of tea.  The happiest memories I have of childhood all revolve around rain; my mom and sisters and I watching movies while drinking hot chocolate.  A flood at our local park, a water fight in a field.  Games with slow-moving soccer balls and skids of mud on uniforms.  Rain also makes me reflect.  Makes me think.  Makes me stop and go deep.  Thus, my fingers clicking away.

Our lives have been in transition; a new baby, a new move, a new ministry.  I’ve hardly had the chance to pull my stuff out of boxes let alone be pensive on the inner workings of my heart.  But today, with the rain, I can’t help but succumb.

Change is inevitable and Transition is part of life.  I’m almost thirty-three, I know these things.  But I have never met Transition the way we have welcomed her these past few months.  She has been kind to me -- in some regards -- has even invigorated me, inspired me to do something beyond my own abilities.  But she is also cruel.  She brings doubt and dark nights and lonely thoughts in a place so unfamiliar.  She pushes me past my zones of comfort and resists me when I ask for some of it back.  She makes me second-guess my decisions, my mothering, my capabilities.  She mocks me and reminds me that this thing, this new Calling, is too big for me.  Too big for us.

The one thing Transition doesn’t know is that in my almost thirty-three years I have fallen in love with a God who is bigger than her unwelcome presence in my life.  He is bigger than my doubts and my fears and my failures.  He is bigger than my inadequacies which Transition is enthusiastic to draw attention to.  Because on the other side of Transition, there will be children who have not known a hug, or a hold or a cuddle, who will only know those things.  When Transition is done and gone, there will be full bellies, and clean clothes and comfy beds.  When Transition is a distant memory, there will be smiling faces, and holding hands, and belonging.  BELONGING.  There will be children who have never felt like they belonged anywhere that will belong to someone.  And the crazy thing I keep telling Transition that quiets her resounding voice -- God has chosen us for them to belong to and I am too excited thinking about that than to listen to her nagging.

There is one thing I have learned about dear old Transition that brings me comfort during her short stay and it’s just that; her stay is short.  She is a traveling visitor, a momentary passenger.  She comes on you fast and she leaves just the same.  And when she’s gone, Life resumes.  Not in the same way it did before her visit but in a way that makes her stay so very worth it.  And I can't wait for Transition to hit the road so Life can settle in and I get to waste the day away rocking children who need to be rocked.