Is your life on the “Transition Train”?

Does anyone else look back on the last few years of your life and feel like you have been in constant transition?

It feels like your on a train that just keeps moving. Every time the train slows down and seems to stop at a station, before you know it, the transition train is taking off again down the tracks.

I think what I’ve now realized is this:

Life isn’t full of transitions… life IS transition.

That statement may frustrate you. I get it! But the sooner we get out of denial, the better off we will be.

All of college and/or grad school are transition. But it doesn’t end there…

As soon as you land a job you’ve waited for, you’ll be moving around in the company.

When you find a place to rent that you love, there will be a reason to need to move.

As soon as you find the person you want to be with forever… you fast forward dating till engagement then marriage.

Then the kid question is upon you. Then all of a sudden your kids are going to school.

Then one of our parents needs more support in life as they age.

Then there is another job change.

All of a sudden some close friends move across the country.

I’m not trying to be melodramatic. This is real stuff.

I know first hand – transition can become a huge barrier to mission.

It can be a long lived excuse for why we avoid stepping out in courage in the ways God may be inviting us.

If we can get to a place where we accept life for the transition that it is… then we can begin to over come these barriers.

Here are a few ways I have seen this work in my life and in the lives of others.

1. Accept that transition is what life is made of and courage can follow.

I spoke with a woman from my church community the other day about how hard it is to accept that we live in constant transition. She told me that her family of five had been through their fare share in the last few years.

She shared that they had become determined not to let the transition that life is, keep them from stepping out in mission.

Now, in the midst of transition, they are helping to lead a Missional Community coming together to love their neighborhood in the name of Jesus. Acceptance was the beginning for her and courage came on it’s heels.

2. Figure out the rhythms in your life that can sustain life on the transition train.

Ever since I was a little kid I have gotten motion sick. Sometimes I feel like I can lose equilibrium when I walk too fast.

But that hasn’t kept me from jumping on planes, trains and automobiles. I just have had to learn what I can do to steady my equilibrium as much as possible. There are medications that have helped me, being sure I don’t read when I am feeling the motion sickness, sitting where I can see out of the front of the car, and other tactics help.

There are rhythms in our lives that can be constant as we feel the “motion sickness” of the transition train.

• What are the daily ways you connect with God?
  
• Do you have even a monthly practice where your family intentionally connects with the neighborhood?
• What ways do you have to update your closest friends on how they can be praying for you?

Keep these rhythms steady – even when life doesn’t feel that way.

Don’t wait to put the rhythms in place until there is a steady season of life… it may never come.

3. Wherever you find yourself – find your team.

I have had 18 young women live in my house over the last 4 years (talk about transition)! One of the most recent to move out, moved to Paris to be an Au Pair for the next year. Claire had really come to value her community here in Minneapolis, but one of the first things she did was find a new community in Paris.

My guess is that it’s a very different group of people then she connected with here.

But no matter where you go, find your team.

They don’t have to be people who are just like you or think the same as you. But find people who will support you, listen to you and have your back. Hint: you’ll need to offer the same to them!

4. Know that God never changes.

One of my deepest prayers when I feel the unsteady feeling of the transition of life is this:

God, help me to realize that even though everything around me seems to be changing, you never change. You are my rock!

As we all speed through life on the train of transition, may this Psalm be our song:

As for God, his way is perfect:

    The Lord’s word is flawless;

    he shields all who take refuge in him.

For who is God besides the Lord?

    And who is the Rock except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength

    and keeps my way secure.

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;

    he causes me to stand on the heights.

He trains my hands for battle;

    my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

You make your saving help my shield,

    and your right hand sustains me;

    your help has made me great.

You provide a broad path for my feet,

    so that my ankles do not give way.

Psalm 18:30-36