mourning in the midst of the good

 

some of you already know this. but there's a good chance some of you don't. so for those of you who don't - i recently accepted a part-time position with a soccer ministry here in charlotte. i haven't fully started yet because i'm responsible for support-raising a good chunk of my salary which means that needs to be most of the way funded before i officially start working. 

there's a lot more backstory i could tell you. i could tell you how i wasn't looking for a job, but God led it to me, and led me to it. i could tell you how overwhelmed i am about support-raising since i've never done it before and it has thrown me rather violently from my comfort zone. i could go into detail about all of the different pieces and things. {if you've been reading for long, you know how much i love to go into detail.} but. but, i'm pushing back against what i'd normally do because the job is not the point today. it's just the context for the point.

because ever since i accepted the position there's been sadness mixed in with the excitement.

a certain amount of mourning - though i'll stop short of calling it grief. 

there has been this feeling of pause. of waiting with bated breath.

i am excited for this. 

i am confident that God has brought me to this place. 

but i've also been oscillating between that confidence and feeling utterly overwhelmed. because this doesn't just get added into our lives. 

with addition comes subtraction. it has to.

there are always only 24 hours in a day.

every action has an equal and opposite reaction. 

time doesn't suddenly multiply because i have more commitments.

part of me has been rushing to create, rushing to relinquish a certain amount of what i normally think i "have" to do in this almost-ended season, and instead trying to spend time doing the things i feel like i'm going to be leaving behind.

we're going to enter into a time of a sort of brutality in the transition. 

we're going to have to grind.

and there are things that we'll have to let go of; things we need to leave behind.

no matter how good the change, everything changes.

we are not isolated and compartmentalized beings no matter how much we'd like to order our lives that way. 

we do not live in a vacuum.

this job will affect all of the parts of my life.

too often i pretend that i can block things out.

that one side doesn't affect the other.

so right now i'm in mourning. i'm not in mourning because i want to stay where i am, but because growth hurts. change hurts. no matter how healthy of a change you're making, it takes work to create new grooves. to create new pathways. to shift. to pivot. to adjust.

there are things i will miss about the freedom i have right now. the flexibility i have will partially disappear. i will have to stay focused every day. there will not be much space left for lackadaisical days. catching up tomorrow will often not be an option.

every day there's a part of me that thinks - you can't even be a good mom for one whole entire day, how in the world are you going to be something else too? 

i've been taking a lot of deep breaths. at times i've been losing myself in online shopping trying to find the best deal on random things. i've been trying to both understand and run away from the discomfort i always feel when change is coming and it's not entirely under my control. 

{sidenote: i think this is really the psychological reason why pregnant mamas nest. we try to control the things we can control because there's so much outside of our control. and that stuff is scary to think about.}

and what do i need to remember? 

it's not mine anyway.

repeat after me:

it's

not

mine

anyway.

and no matter what i want to tell myself to assuage my anxieties, none of it is up to me.

not

one

tiny

piece.

and that is a hard pill to swallow for someone who is an achiever and wants to check off all of the things.

but it's also a relief. because i can make decisions with the information i have. but God is leading and guiding and directing. he is in charge. and he can actually see all of the different parts. he can see the big picture. 

it's all his anyway. 

it's not up to me. 

i can't make it fail if he wants it to succeed.

and the inverse is true too. 

i can't make it succeed if he has not determined it.

this morning i got an email from one of my {soon-to-be-but-basically-already-is} co-workers and she ended the email with psalm 127:1a - "unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

and that just brought me back down to earth. 

i have so many thoughts swimming in my head.

the checklists are long, guys. 

and support-raising is looming large right now. 

but if i remember that it's the Lord's - that he is leading and guiding and directing, and i need only to take one step at a time, suddenly the perspective looks so much different.

because it's not up to me. 

none of it. 

and i need to remember that about the rest of it too. 

because i do think it's healthy to be honest about what we're leaving behind. 

to admit that with addition comes subtraction and to recognize that this is going to be a time of upheaval. but i also need to remember that the Lord is building the house - he's just letting me swing the hammer here and there. 

and i need to remember that with renovations -- demo comes first. 

so i will mourn the end of an era. i will not ignore all the piled-up feelings from all sides of the continuum, but instead i'll let myself feel them. i'll be honest about where i am and what i'm excited about for what's next and also what i'm sad to leave behind.

it doesn't always have to be one or the other. 

and most of the time it's not.

xoxo