Hop to It
Currently I am in, yet again, what I would call a “transition season.” I’ve done a lot of big “transition seasons” over the last couple years: finishing school, starting a new job, moving, moving again, quitting a job, moving again, starting another new job. So this year, for the first time in several years, there’s been some ordinariness for an extended period of time. I’ve been in the same city, with the same little studio apartment, at the same job for almost a whole year. Part of me is happy to finally sit down and catch my breath.
But there is something in me that has this sick tendency to just want to jump to the next thing. I find myself impatiently tapping my foot, ready to step into what I think should be coming. I find my mind drifting, far away from the present, to my future marriage, subsequent children, prospective jobs, or hoped for ministry opportunities. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with dreaming of the future… but when we find ourselves itching to get out of the present, we are missing it. We are missing the precious dinner dates with Jesus that don’t require us to prepare a meal for a husband (or to do the dishes after he prepares you one because ya know, feminism). We are missing the dreams and visions in the night without babies crying in the middle of them. We are missing conversations with our difficult co-workers about the work Jesus has done in and through us. We are absent from our current ministry.
God orchestrates transitions perfectly, stitching together the end of breezy summers with the beginning of crisp falls (well, except in Hawaii). In Acts 14:16-17, Paul and Barnabas say, “In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from the heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” In Barnes’ on the Whole Bible, Albert Barnes comments on this verse, saying, “Rain is one of the evidences of the goodness of God…There is scarcely anything which more certainly indicates unceasing care and wisdom than the needful and refreshing showers of rain…The falling of rain is regulated by laws which We cannot trace, and it seems, therefore, to be poured, as it were, directly from God's hollow hand.” I love this scripture and these thoughts behind it—this idea that God still nourishes the land and yields fruitful seasons even when no one deserves it. God still continues to provide conditions for growth and harvest, things only He can do, and does even when He has every reason not to.
Thankfully, He does the same in our lives. He has made us perfectly for seasons, always knitting ends with fresh beginnings…even when he has every reason not to. Even when I have screwed up the last season so badly I should be forced a do-over. Even when I haven’t been present in my current season. Even when I’ve ignored the Lord, fought the Lord, kicked and screamed and argued with the Lord. He never leaves Himself “without witness.” He still somehow manages to show Himself in the details of the mess, harvesting fruit where I would have surely created wasteland.
My new transition is a transition into school again, as I start a Masters program to become a teacher. This wasn’t the next season I had in mind. This transition wasn’t the next transition I wanted to be making. My mind wants to skip over this to the next thing, to the next opportunity, to the next season of life. And yet, it is the season I find myself in. And it’s a beautiful one, leading me straight into the development of my gifts and anointing and even into prophetic words that have been spoken over my life. I am in this season—this ending of a summer, beginning of a fall. I am in this messy, single, poor, barely-adulting-but-doin’-my-darndest-to, frequent broken car, crazy schedule, adventure, beach life, transition season… and I don’t want to miss it. I want to be a partner in the work, a help in harvesting the fruit, and a daughter that dances in the very present rain.
Please note: A teacher… ha! Someone please give my teacher-mama a hug.
