When You Find Yourself In A New Season
The other day I came across an old journal from seven years ago. Thumbing through the worn pages, I was immediately taken back to a different time and place. Matt and I were newly weds and had moved into a 1976 airstream a family friend gifted us. We were neck deep in planning our summer tour across the Deep South. My brother had just moved back from Belize and planned to join us on this thrilling venture. We set up a Go-fund me and began mapping out our route. Our plans were etched in pencil but we knew we needed to go. The world felt impossibly big and exciting and we felt compelled to collect stories and share our own. We gathered up what little camera gear we possessed, so that I, the sole videographer, could document our experience. Jarod and Matt packed their guitars and mandolins, ready to share their music with anyone who was willing to hear it.
Where I once ached for longer branches, I now pray for deeper roots.
Looking back, this particular season of life was one of the riskiest, most exhilarating to date. I am a self-professed dreamer, but I have never been described as a risk-taker. I truly struggle with putting myself out there if the chance of public failure exceeds more than about 3%. But when I think back on “the early years” of mine and Matt’s marriage, this is the season I remember the most vividly. Regardless of who we were before this tour or what dispositions we held when we embarked on it, we returned as dreamers and doers, adventurers of the highest order. We lived for just over a month on the road, completely and utterly dependent on God to show us what was next. We camped out in parking lots, busked city streets, made divine connections with artists and restaurant owners and pastors of a homeless church. And when we returned home, I truly believed it was only the beginning for us. We had unearthed an insatiable hunger to live big and boldly for the kingdom.
Fast forward almost eight years later to the journal marked with today’s date. In place of inspirational stories and sweeping tales, it carries prayers for my sick child fighting another cold and the highlights of another restful family sabbath. I re-read my own words written just days ago, fingers stroking the pages of my new year goals: Buy our home, plant a garden, homeschool Cyrus in the Fall, become certified to foster, get a dog…Could the contrasts of my two worlds confined in two neatly written out journal entries be any starker? Did I miss the mark somewhere along the path of self-discovery? Where I once ached for longer branches, I now pray for deeper roots. Where I used to look for excitement and wonder, I now find it in the simplicity of my children’s laughter. Where I once preferred a new horizon every evening, I now find contentment in falling asleep in the same familiar bed every night.
Despite the changes inside me giving birth to new dreams around me, I have never stopped dreaming. The end goal has never changed – to make much of Christ and bring His kingdom to earth, though the journey to the destination looks quite a bit different. We still have plans to continue traveling and introducing our boys to new cultures and aspects of God’s glorious earth. We are still pursuing our passions of art and music, even though time spent in the studio looks a lot different these days. And we are still fighting for a love story for the ages, prioritizing time and connection even if it’s shoulder to shoulder on our sofa after putting the boys to bed each night.
I have found myself in a new season, and the changes were so subtle it took comparing two journals nearly a decade apart to spot the differences. Where I might otherwise be tempted to second guess my current pursuits, I rest in the transformational truth that there are different callings for different seasons. There are seasons of deepening roots and watering soil so that the seasons of blooming and bearing fruit can exist. It’s so easy as a mother to young kids to get lost in the minutiae of peanut butter sandwiches and carpool lines, but if we work to see the purpose in every kiss goodnight and silly conversation, we will realize that we were planting seeds all along. That none of it was wasted because the moments we are so often just trying to get through are the ones that are molding our children into the people they will one day be.
The adventure was never about the what, it was always about the Who. The One who writes our stories knows what we need in order to flourish. Maybe one day we will sell our home and load our little family up in another airstream with an unknown destination. But today, we are saying our bedtime prayers and putting down roots. And there is beauty here, too.
