"All my life I have been changing..." -Donald Miller

Change is a reality of life. We all face transitions in our work, our families and our living situations. My experience has been that while every season of transition has some common threads, each one has its own unique joys, challenges and heartaches.

These past months have been full of changes for me. In the next few weeks I will be leaving Montpellier, my home for the past 7 years. I will leave my first adult apartment, with the furnishings I chose so carefully. I will leave my team, friends, church, students, ministry, favorite cafes and the familiar streets of this city I love. It has been a strange, surreal time of grieving, celebrating, and organizing the logistics necessary for this transition to go as smoothly as possible.

It has also been a time of excitement, anticipation, and preparation as I look forward to the many new adventures that are coming in the next few months: a new city, a new team, new students…and marriage! Jack and I are very much looking forward to beginning this new season of our lives, to learning and growing together, and to finally living in the same city.

As is often the case during transitions, this season has been one lived in tension: caught between my current and future realities, not fully belonging to either, caught between the pain and grief of endings and the hope and anticipation of new beginnings.  It is a strange and tiring place to live, fighting to stay present and to continue engaging with the Lord and others. It is also a messy place to live, full of the planned and unpredictable, different desires and expectations, many moving parts to manage, unexpected stressors and untidy, out-of-control emotions. But transitions can also be a sweet place to live, if we are open to what God would do in us – to both the things He is planting and the things He is uprooting. As Miller says, in the continuation of his quote, “…I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die.”

This has been my prayer in this in-between time: that the Lord would continue to cultivate my heart & soul, and that He would give me the courage and strength to persevere in this tension. And He has been incredibly gracious.