We’ve just crossed the finish line on end of the year holidays and though the tree still needs to be put away and the wrapping paper recycled, I find myself struggling a bit with the transition of it all.
We worked hard and fast right into the holiday season where we found ourselves surrounded by such much-needed down time. Now we’re gearing up to dive right back into to work. I like all of it: the work, the celebration, the rest, the play, and especially the lazy afternoons nestled under a down blanket on the couch.
What I don’t like are the transitions.
Sometimes it feels like we’re cruising along in fifth gear when in a moment’s notice we have to pop it into second, then sputter along, until it’s pedal to the medal and back in fifth. Now we need to drop it into fourth, wait, back up to fifth.
I like all the gears, I just don’t like the grinding I feel as I change in between. There’s this awkward painful sound that emits as we transition and find a new cruising speed, a new normal in each season of life.
What gear do you find yourself in? What’s your favorite gear? How do you transition well?
**The beautiful artwork shown above was found here.
Hi Margaret,
Appreciate the post. I feel the same hazy feeling moving from one gear to the next. I am learning to simply push onward. Trusting that I will find the right gear soon, even if a stall seems imminent. I think we can live (or write) ourselves into an inspired state. Waiting for something to happen almost always ends with disappointment.
Praying that God continue to use your words to do mighty things in 2011.
Peace.
Wonderful post Margaret. Painful as they may sound,I’m thankful for being able to hear the gears when they grind. It’s when I’m shifting so fast I stop hearing and feeling the transitions–the grinding gears–that I get worried. Because at that point, I’m ruining my soul’s transmission and I don’t even notice it.
We have definitely had a good number of severe transitions over the past few years, and the thing I’m purposing to grow in (however slow it may be and feel) is to find the ways in which every day is the same and purpose to connect myself to them everyday, in every season, even in transition. I think in the Lord there are (or should be?) constants. And I suspect the constants are really the most important parts and are built of things I actually have some say over.
Of course, discovering what the constants are and how one nourishes and clings to them is another matter entirely. But I’ve become challenged by this thought, and as I wrestle with it, I think I’ve found the jarring gear-changes induce slightly less whiplash as I consider and try to practice what this might look like.
Of course, some may disagree entirely, but this is where I’m at in processing this. Currently, we are weeks away from moving to one of maybe a dozen cities in a handful of countries and we have no idea where that will be or what the situation will be when we get there. Transition abounds!