“I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing.” – Don Miller
Tonight I am cozied up on my comfy bed beneath clean sheets beside my window that overlooks a twinkling panorama of Los Angeles. The ones I love most are asleep on the other side of my bedroom walls and My body is refreshed from a warm shower and satisfied from a taco dinner. Its nights like these that I typically love but this night is not like others I’ve had before. As I put fingers to keys, I can’t help but look at the 65L pack sitting on my floor, busting at the seams, stuffed full with my belongings for nine months. Tomorrow I will swing that pack onto my back and board a plane that will fly me far away from everything comfortable and familiar and safe.
So tonight I am grieving. I am grieving the end of dinner with family each night and daytime outings with friends. The end of babysitting and volunteering at St. Andrews. Grieving the end of this season. But as the leaves begin to turn and Autumn sneaks in, I am reminded that that’s all that this all is. A change of season. But it is a season that I must allow myself to grieve so that I can be present in the next season.
Tomorrow I begin my journey on the World Race and enter into a new season of learning and loving and laughing. I will still sit down to dinner each night with family, but with the new family I find in my teammates. I will still go on daytime outings with friends but with new ones. I’ll fall in love with new little ones and volunteer with new ministries.
And so while I grieve, I also rejoice. Rejoice at what God has already done and what He will continue to do in the next. I rejoice in how He has provided this opportunity and prepared my heart for the coming months. I thank Him for the abundance of blessings and copious grace.
Tonight, my heart is filled with sorrow and joy. It is overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like I’m wading in a river and that before I know it the riverbed will fall out from beneath my feet. So I seek refuge in the Rock that is higher than I. And I rest in the arms of my Abba who promises to comfort me and take care of me, giving me strength and confidence. And I turn my ear in the direction of that still, small voice that beckons be deeper into the water, inviting me on the adventure of a lifetime down the Mighty river.
