I had a wonderful youth minister in Jackson who helped me learn that life is full of seasons. I am a sentimental person, so it's hard for me to face goodbyes and change. But she taught me that some people and things come into our lives for only a season, and just because they won't forever be a day-to-day part of our lives doesn't mean the importance of their season is diminished. Rather than looking back and being sad, you can reflect back on what they meant to you, how it changed you, and who you've become now, in part due to that season. It completely changed my outlook on life and, I think, helped me through a lot of changes during late high school, college, and since.
John Piper, in his prayer for women, has a paragraph that refers to chapters, which I choose to equate with those seasons. He says,
"No chapter has all the joys. Finite life is a series of trade-offs. Finding God's will and living for the glory of Christ to the full in every chapter is what makes it a success, not whether it reads like somebody else’s chapter or whether it has in it what only another chapter will bring."
I love that. To me, it encapsulates the beauty of what I've been learning for years about seasons.
Well, come May, Hubby and I will be beginning a new chapter, or season. I have loved our season here in Huntsville. We have found a church home that fits just right and made a great group of friends through it. I have grown so much, both personally and professionally, through my job in the past year, and we've learned a lot about each other in this season, too.
In December, Hubby decided to resign from his job to spend some time studying up before beginning to look for a position in a new, though closely related, field. We were united in this decision and looked forward to the time of re-evaluation and exploration. But then, sooner than we had expected or planned, a job offer came in from a company that fit just about all of his "new job" criteria. In a whirlwind few weeks, we went for an interview, received an offer, and made the decision to uproot.
At the end of April, we will be moving to Atlanta for Hubby to join forces (physically, since he is already working remotely) with a great small software consulting firm doing Ruby on Rails web application development.
(Are you liberal artsy readers still with me? The important part of that sentence is "moving to Atlanta.")
It's hard to think about leaving this nest we have built, but we are also excited. We went a few weeks ago and successfully shopped for an apartment. Especially now that I can envision the actual space, I have been mentally culling our current belongings and laying them out in our new home. I'm sure early summer will bring a flurry of blog posts as I shop, decorate, and acclimate myself to my new surroundings.
In this in-between time, though, I am daily striving to stay here. Yes, I am excited about the changes and the adventure. Yes, I am looking forward to a respite as I reinvent my daily life. But yes, I also still have responsibilities and opportunities for enjoyment here. And I don't want to miss this. I feel like I missed out on a lot during my last semester of college because my brain was months ahead of my body, planning for a wedding and a marriage, and I don't want to do that again.
For today, and tomorrow, and the next month, I am in this chapter.
But the next one will enfold in its own time, and I will be ready.
