Transitions in life can be hard, whether you expect them or not.
I remember when my boys were little and they struggled with transitioning from one activity to the next. I would prepare them for it by saying things like, “In fifteen minutes, we’ll have to clean up the toys because then it’s time to: have lunch, go to an appointment, take a nap, etc.” I’d then give them the five-minute warning. Then I’d tell them it’s time to put the toys away and there’d be all sorts of complaining.
The worst was when I had to prepare them to leave a friend’s house because it was time to return home!
Life is filled with transitions, both big and small. Some we look forward to, others we don’t. Some we expect and prepare for, and others seem to catch us by surprise. No matter the transition, and whether we see its arrival on the horizon or not, any change in life often comes with some kind of struggle or challenge.
When I finished college and started applying for my first job, I remember just wanting to find something in my field. After all, that’s why I went to college, right? I nearly accepted a job as a bank teller because I couldn’t find anything else when a position opened at a domestic violence shelter. I was thrilled! It was a counseling position working with women in abusive relationships. I couldn’t wait to use all my freshly honed skills and knowledge. I remember the feeling of excitement that finally I would be doing what I was called to do: help women and make a difference in their lives. Yet the transition from college to my first job in the field didn’t come without its challenges. That’s because my efforts were not received quite as I expected. I was twenty-one and newly married. The women in the shelter must have thought I was a kid and responded to me as such. They didn’t take me seriously. They questioned my skills and my ability to help them. It was a transition that stretched me in many ways. I was humbled and what I learned most from that experience was that I didn’t really know much at all.
Another big transition in life came when we went from being a family of two to a family of three. Having our first son was something my husband and I were thrilled about and looked forward to. But the transition was challenging and sometimes downright hard. I had a new person I was responsible for. There was so much to learn and I knew so little. I often felt helpless and inadequate. The changes to my life were rapid fire: My priorities changed. My expectations for daily life changed. The relationship dynamics between my husband and I changed. While it was a joy-filled time of life, it also stretched me in ways that continue on to this day.
Now I face a new life transition. It’s a transition that has been creeping up on me for some time now. It’s a transition I know is coming and I’ve tried to prepare for it but I also know that when it comes it will hit me hard. My oldest leaves for college soon and my youngest will follow not long after. That transition will be not unlike the days of being a brand new mom. Life will feel like it’s been flipped upside down. My day to day life will change in drastic ways. I will have to relearn how to do life without kids in the house. And I’ll have to learn how to parent adult children.
I already feel a bit like my kids used to when I’d tell them it was time to move on from something they enjoyed doing to another task. I want to cling to the present and ignore the future knocking at my door. I want things to stay the same. I don’t want to have to struggle through another life transition. But at the same time, I know this transition is good for both myself and for my sons. But as I look back on all the other transitions in life I’ve experienced—both the ones I looked forward to and the ones I resisted—I know there are important lessons for me to learn. I know there is good work that takes place in those challenges—work that God is doing in and through me. For it is in the stretching—in the push and pull on my heart—that I am shaped into the image of Christ.
Life is filled with change and transitions from one season to another. I know that many more are in my future. I want my heart to see these transitions as opportunities to grow in Christ-likeness. I want to see God in them. I want to depend upon him as I walk through them. Even more, I want to rejoice in the struggle, knowing that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).
How about you? What life transitions have shaped you? And how have you seen God’s hand at work in them?
Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash
