On transitions + identity

Today was a strange day. This week will be a strange one.

Another goodbye, another transition for our family. 

We didn’t choose this one, and we weren’t prepared for it, but we’ve been here before.

I feel as if we’re living through the story's sequel that took place last June when we sat inside a courtroom and had our whole world change as the judge uttered a few short sentences.

We walked through shock and grief and so much hurt. But then there was the ray of hope at the end - we will continue a small measure of what we have grown to love so much.

Though the boys who called our home their own for the past several years will move out of our front bedroom, they will still gather around the school table and we will still enjoy cups of tea and read alouds and solve math problems together.

It was far from easy, now several months later, we realized the challenges and worked through more than a few struggles. But we started the year happy. Happy with where things were and enjoying this opportunity we had.

But now, it’s all changed with just a week’s notice. The tea times, while the sun streams through the schoolroom window, will come to a close by the end of this week.

My heart hurts once again and it’s a familiar hurt. One I was hoping wouldn’t return.

I think about facing another change and the toll it will take on my Ev. How he will look to the windows with expectation for the Monday morning arrival of two of his favorite people.

I have lately been contemplating the concept of identity.

We started our marriage a bit older than some, but we expected the natural flow of seasons to unfold in our married days.

Instead, we skipped to nearly 10 years ahead, teaching 5th-grade Math and cheering at soccer games. Then with little preparation, we changed back to toddlerhood and a family of littles.

We signed up for homeschool co-ops and attended field trips with friends. I planned out a third year of homeschooling and now I’m back to toddler giggles and countless messes.

Homeschooling is something I loved. Something I found such a passion for and something now that will sit on the back burner until little Ev grows a bit more.

My life is still so full and so good, but I have been reminded again and again to keep my identity fixed and firmly planted in knowing Christ.

Not in my position in the community, not in the things that I do, not in the roles I have taken on, because all of them - everyone - could change and have changed.

I have lived with a desire to live all out for Jesus. To lay all on the altar and to see my life used as a pleasing aroma to my King.

That has led me on a hard but happy journey of homeschooling for the past three years and I’m grateful for the trials and treasures that it brought.

But that has come to an end, and even though there is pain mingled with its ending, I can look with hopeful expectancy to the next season I will enter.

My position remains the same, a life given unto my Jesus - may He lead me onward and upward, my heart will keep trusting no matter the twists and turns we have yet to face in this life.

The life of a believer is full of unexpected adventures that only a perfect God could orchestrate. We are privileged to walk this road. We are safe with Him as our guide.

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Why the world can’t get love right.