Risen MotherhoodSample

Transitions 

From our human perspective, transitions aren’t desirable. We’re tempted to look forward to what’s next, fixing our eyes on the prize—the end of the transition. We tell ourselves “This pregnancy is hard, but it will all be better when the baby gets here” or “Moving with a toddler feels chaotic, but we’re almost to our forever home. Then we’ll be settled.”

But what happens if the pregnancy doesn’t produce a healthy baby, or the house sale falls through or your husband loses his job? Rooting our hope in our circumstances is always dangerous. So is thinking, “This is my last transition. Once this is over, we’ll finally be happy.”

For many of us, transitions can bring out the worst in us, depriving us of what we think we must have to be happy, comfortable, and thriving until our true nature is revealed. God shows us our impatient exasperation when our husband works late every night or travels for weeks on end. He shows us our fickle hearts when a chorus of commotion from our children sends us to seek refuge in social media.

When a goldsmith wants to purify gold, he heats it until the impurities are revealed so he can skim them off. Without the heat, the impurities stay embedded in the gold. Similarly, our circumstances turn up the heat until we see what’s in our hearts. It’s not that we used to be nice, energetic people, and now (due to this transition and things outside of our control) we’re suddenly irritable and unkind. Those changes simply expose the hidden sin that existed all along in the ease and familiarity of our old circumstances.

God doesn’t promise our current hard season or transition will end the way we want it to, but he does promise he’ll be with us all the way through it. He’ll provide strength, refreshment, and encouragement until we reach heaven, where we’ll never experience sorrow again. Just as he provided an oasis for the tired, thirsty Israelites on their journey in the desert, he can provide refreshment in our transitional times when we cry out to him in faith.

The transition you just want to end isn’t a throwaway season—it’s a time full of God’s purposes, when hindsight will tell a story of sin and need driving us to the Father and making us love more like the Son.

Transitional seasons are part of life. We might not enjoy every aspect of them, but we don’t have to fear them. God loves us too much to let us be comfortable and unscathed. Adoption, infertility, job loss, sick family members, new careers, and new schools might feel like transitions we don’t want to bear. But let’s rejoice when we have moments of joy and rest, knowing that God has good purposes for today and a sure promise of our final destination.

Reflect: What transition are you facing and how are you trusting God in those struggles? How might God be working in your transitional season to make it about more than just survival—changing you into the image of Christ?