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transition.


transition is the word of this season for us.  everything we do is covered in transition.  we are in the transition from one home to another.  from one town to another.  from one church to another.  from one job to another. 

it truly is a bit disorienting when everything around you is changing: your driver's license, your address, your home phone number, your grocery store, your weekly schedule, even your blind walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night. 

but it's not just the sense of losing so much that is familiar, it is the also the sense of losing so much family.  part of this transition - part that i just couldn't have really prepared for - is the emotional side of it.  last night i went out with a couple of friends to sort of say goodbye.  tonight we have a dinner in celebration of our four years here at the church.  tomorrow night it is dinner with some friends.  i just went to my last ad council meeting and my last service at the nursing home.  during these days i am planning my last sermon, which is somehow supposed to be 12-15 minutes of everything i would ever want to say in a sermon.  all of this adds up to a freight train of emotion heading right for me as i lie there, tied to the tracks. 

so, forgive me if i get a bit weepy.  this transition stuff is tough!  i am thrilled about the new opportunities and the excitement of the future, and at the same time i am about to be crushed by a giant black engine of goodbyes.  and so i'm in transition.  i'm both here and there.  i'm both happy and sad.  i'm both anticipating and dreading.  i'm both crying and celebrating.  i'm just both.  like an emotional harvey dent, with two faces for nearly every moment.  so thanks for putting up with me during these days, through this time of transition.  i will get from here to there, but in the meantime, i will laugh and cry with you.  and that will be my rescue.  there is no untying me from the tracks.  there is no last minute escape.  there is just you and me, laughing and remembering, crying, enjoying where we've been and expecting big things from where we are going.  that will be our rescue: the getting through it. 
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Mary said…
You can do it brother! I'm praying for you...but trying to find a way to pray to God that uses "moving" words ;)
10:29 PM
cathyq said…
My heart goes out to you and Shannon. I have been in your position as you know. It IS scary; it IS exciting. Try to maintain some kind of stability as you seesaw between those 2 emotional extremes. We are certainly praying for both of you!
7:24 PM
Anonymous said…
I walked this road last year and it was very emotionally exhausting - it was like a death for me - and I could see myself going through the stages of grief that we learn about. However, I continued to have one verse of comfort and hope return to me: Isaiah 43: 18-19: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." and Philippians 3:13-14: "No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,[a] but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." Not that we need to forget the past - impossible with the many blessings and lessons learned, but to let it go and give it to God in anticipation of the future and the hope it brings. I will hold you in my prayers during this time of letting go and looking ahead.
11:56 AM
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