I’ve come to the conclusion that it is the transitions that are the hardest.
When I was a young mother with an infant, wise older women told me about the different “seasons” in a woman’s life. They explained that things changed, depending on the age of your children, and that each season would have it’s own challenges and rewards. They also told me how no one season was really more difficult than another, just different.
What they forgot to tell me was how hard the transitions were. Just when you have a rhythm going in one season, it changes, and all of the things you knew are useless in this new season. You have to develop an entirely new way of thinking about things and doing things in order to live in this brand new world. Just as in childbirth, that time between the child in your womb and the child in your arms is the most arduous and painful of all.
I’m in a transition season right now. I am entering the home stretch of our homeschooling years and starting to think about what I will do when our education journey is over. I’m also transitioning into being a wife again and the mother of a special needs child. There are many transitions right now and they are hard. We have good days and bad days. We have days when I have no idea how to fit in all of the pieces of our lives to make a whole family that works together. We have times when I am being pulled in one direction by old habits and thought patterns and duties and in another direction by new habits, thought patterns, and duties. There are days I wish I could clone myself and days when I think that all of these various strands of my life might be weaving into a whole.
If you are in a place of transition, too, I sympathize. I will get through it and so will you. Philippians 1:6 says that “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”. Isn’t that good to know?
Myriads of Thoughts 
Oh, Joy, I’m with you that transitions are difficult! My transitions aren’t all the same as yours, but I’m feeling the challenges of them like never before in my life. Thank you for sharing the encouragement of Philippians 1:6. I am feeling very incomplete these days (ironically, at the age of 50!) but also more dependent on Jesus as my Good Shepherd and the author and perfecter of my faith than ever before. God bless you as you persevere in the joy of the Lord.
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I’m glad it was an encouragement, Melissa. More and more I find hope in the fact that it is God’s work, not mine, and that He never does anything badly or unfinished. His work is always complete and perfect. There is great comfort in that, I think.
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