This is the thing about our transition, I lose my perspective so easily.
Just this past weekend I felt discouraged. Why are we in Melbourne? When is our life going to get started? How much longer can I survive with two pairs of jeans? What’s the deal with all my first-world problems? These are the questions of the In Between, the space when there are no real answers, only lots and lots of questions. This is the bridge between the past and the future, it is shaky, rickety and narrow, and I am crossing over a ravine with rocks and raging rapids.
It feels like any decision made too quickly or incorrectly is going to send me hurtling off the edge.
A bit dramatic, no? I suppose these are the delusional feelings of a mother who traveled half-way around the world on Wednesday and Thursday only to have her kids wake up to party from midnight to 4am on Friday night, only to then have gastro hit an entire household on Saturday evening. I suppose no one is thinking rationally after they’ve cared for a puking child only to then be sick herself half a day later. But it’s true. This is what I felt on Sunday. Why are we here? Nothing is getting done. We have so much to do.
But then it was Monday, and I photocopied official documents, went to the Police Department for certification and then to Medicare, and in a few hours my kids and I have healthcare again. Just like that. And then I heard my sister say that we had been in the country for four days.
Four days. Really? I wondered because it felt like an eternity or nothingness and discouragement and illness.
But it wasn’t.
When you see life through the wrong perspective, everything, absolutely everything, will seem like it is against you.
Because here is the truth. In four days we opened a bank account, struggled with jet lag, nursed a sick child and our own sick selves and sorted out health care for our entire family. Nevermind the cooking, cleaning, clothing, laundry and the everyday care for adults and children. We didn’t do any of this alone, we have help because we have family here, amazing family and friends. And underneath all of this are the everlasting arms that carry us home, the hands of God who doesn’t always take away the problem (even when I begged every hour from midnight to 4am), but somehow gives grace to get through and promises and delivers his presence. This grace looks like my sister who cooks and cares for my boys, and this grace also looks like a virus running its course and leaving. Sometimes grace is just surviving a night and knowing that now it is day. Only 12 more hours before bedtime.
Life is moving forward, and life is good even when it is hard. This is the truth. And it is encouragement, it is joy, it is hope.
Now it’s your turn: Whatever stage of transition you are in right now, if you are discouraged, please take a moment and write down what it is that is true. What have you missed in your own story? How is grace holding you up even when it seems like there is pain or when things are not going the way you want it to?
