Every stage of life has its own hard season. You overcome one challenge just to realize another will follow it. As I’ve gotten older, my mind has naturally begun categorizing and naming those seasons of adult life by their most prominent features: Curry Creek, the Farm, Grad School, the Exodus, and the New Normal. In each season I remember at one time or another feeling like I just couldn’t make it, but God has used each season to make me just a little more like Him. Each difficulty has stripped away a little of me and left me with a gift.
Curry Creek was the subdivision Gary and I lived in during the hard and wonderful years of surviving early marriage, having babies, and forging friendships with other couples. We grew up during this phase: basically, we learned what it meant to be adults and how to not be selfish. Life was busy and loud and fun and infuriating. And slowly along the way, I learned to trust God to be in control and to bow to my own self-interest over wallowing in self-pity. Marriage taught me that God can be trusted even when His ways don’t make sense--my gift was proof of his faithfulness. Selflessness and humility changes hearts, especially your spouse’s.
The Farm was much different. Stranded in a remote and deteriorating house in the middle of four hundred acres of corn and soybean fields for two years, I learned contentment. There was too much quiet and lonely, but it drove me to my Creator. When no one else is around, you learn to listen to the One who is. He showed me the beauty of kaleidoscopic sunsets over geometric cornfields, flocks of geese on a gray and sullen, puddle-filled day, river wide and surrounding. I learned to count my reasons to be thankful. My gift was gratitude.
Grad school was where I longed for quiet. In a new and demanding teaching career and graduate school all at the same time, and for three years, I grew weary of the busyness and constant going. At my many tear-filled moments in extreme conflict over the commitment I had made and whether or not this decision was best for my family, I learned to look to God as my sustainer. I was in a constant state of feeling like I was not enough--as a mom, as a wife, as a teacher, as a friend. I was stretched so thin. So I looked to the One who was enough, and he held me up. My gift was learning dependence and perseverance.
The Exodus is what I call the three-year time period in which the vast majority of our closest friends moved out of state or out of our lives for some reason or another, leaving once more a quiet space in my life. When everything dear to you is taken away, it has a way of producing otherwise-impossible perspective. How dear to me was God? Was He my everything--my first joy? What was I doing with this one life I have? Was I using it for Him? It was time to step up. My gift was intentionality and renewed purpose, and through that new relationships.
The New Normal is where I am currently. It’s where I’m open to what God has for me--even when it’s scary. It’s listening to God in a new way. It’s saying yes to whatever he calls me to. It’s a life that’s void of plans and more like walking with my eyes closed. Right now, we’re fostering a child--it’s a situation that just kind of fell into our laps. Had you asked me a year ago if we had plans to add someone else to our family, I would have laughed. I had no idea we would be in this situation. And to be honest, it’s been hard on our family--and messy times--broken people trying to love each other well in a difficult situation. Lots of conflicting feelings--and a dichotomy of joy-filled moments followed by awkward tension. And then there’s the not knowing what tomorrow will look like, or the next day, or the next. There’s a wrestling with God--not my will but your will in this day, in this moment. I’m still waiting to open my gift this season, but I can peak into the box. It looks a lot like the ability to say yes to hard things.
