The inspiration for this post comes... from me transitioning into being a "local" in London, from a friend's experience she shared with me, and from my mom's brave transition into becoming a full-time teacher.
As I was talking to my lovely friend Williams shimai (serving a faithful
mission in Tokyo) - who shared with me a wonderful idea, that I will now pass along to you:
"
I feel like transitions really take time and that's OK."
Before I left for London, there was a speaker at my church who shared a message about changes in life. He talked about how they were a part of life and that usually they are a lot harder than we realize beforehand, yet his message was one of hope.
Today in my church meetings, I realized / remembered that if we already knew what it would be like to hurt or to have this experience, we wouldn't need to have it.
This week, I was considered a "local" for the first time - my friend happened to be visiting London and we got to catch up for a bit.
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St. Paul's from a nearby roof - you can see the London Eye there in the back (blue)
Also - they block off escalators when they don't move... it always makes me laugh because the signs talk about how dangerous escalators are... when they aren't moving... |
I don't consider myself a local yet, but have noticed that I wear my jacket so much, it is now a part of my identity... haha.
I think that it is hard to remember that it is ok to hurt. Today, I wore heels to church - forgetting how much walking and standing I had to do today - my usual tube route was closed for maintenance and I was singing in the choir... so by the end of the day, my feet were really upset at me. In fact, I had to pray a little for help walking home... When I realized that my panic "I don't think I can do this" reaction is very fast even when things aren't that bad. For example, I used to ballroom dance all the time - so my feet know well what it means to hurt. So I shouldn't be surprised.
In the bigger picture, I can let myself take time to transition to this new life. This means that on days where I'm exhausted, that it is ok to be tired, or when something doesn't make sense, it doesn't have to. This isn't as eloquent as I'd like it to be - and that's fine too.
Today in my church meetings, we were reminded that Christ's grace is sufficient to help us, in our weaknesses and mistakes. It is more than enough - if we can let our hearts be open, we will experience some pain - but we will also experience growth. Like my friend said, I hope we can give our transitions time to settle down and to learn from them.
