I’ve been reflecting a lot lately about personal and spiritual growth. For the record, I hate the growth part! It hurts, it’s hard, I cry ugly, my feelings are a mess, I rant a lot, use some bad language and end up repenting (often as I use it), and I inevitably ask “WHY NOW?”
But the fruit of personal and spiritual growth is always sweet.
I have been in a heavy season of it this year. Actually it’s been since last fall. It’s involved about every part of my known world. My church, husband, friends, family, and our finances.
Accelerated is too lame a word to describe it
It began with my husband’s personal trauma counseling. That unearthed a lot of need for healing of emotions, and correcting behaviors for both of us, that had become ingrained over the years.
Phew!
Next was a plan to leave IL. At first we’d thought to simply sell one house and buy another, but this traveling RV bug hit and we went a different direction. Unfortunately there was an enormous hiccup we didn’t anticipate. It involved lawyers, courts, and lots of money…
Not fun
And it also added to the accelerated personal growth season. It uncovered habits, fears, lots of behaviors linked to trauma and financial costs, that were the result of some relational bullying.
Sigh…
Choosing to set aside personal anger, frustration and grief in order to see clearly and move forward is a big task. I tend to be pretty existential so living in the now is easier for me than some. But it still gave rise to ugly feelings and hurts that needed to be expressed and dealt with.
In the midst of this accelerated season (March) I had an angiogram that led to a cardiac stent. No small thing. I’m doing well, hate all the meds I have to take, but am thankful for the miracle of medical science.
At the end of April we had to move out of our Chicago apartment, our lease was up. We rented a storage unit for the remains of our purged possessions. Then we moved into a church family’s basement for the month of May. Our legal situation was uncertain, and we needed to see where it would land before making more decisions. It was a sweet time of rest. Lovely family, 3 sweet girls and a puppy! We couldn’t have asked for a safer, more loving environment to rest in while we waited out our legal issues to resolve.
In the middle of May our little car that we planned to sell, gave up the ghost. Our mechanic told Bruce he was the only guy he ever met who could break a Toyota! Money spent to make it trade-able, and another couple of weeks to search for the truck we needed, to pull the RV we planned to live in. Shortly after Memorial Day, the absolutely perfect truck appeared! It was even set up to pull a 5th wheel, with the kind of hitch needed in the truck bed (appreciate the new vocab people!). Traded our broken Camry, and walked out with this…
After legalities resolved we moved to an Extended Stay America, close to the house we planned to sell. We spent the next 3 weeks preparing it for market. Can I just say…we’re not 50 anymore!! The results were worth the effort, it sold in 3 days, above asking price and for cash. It was an answer to prayer.
Throughout this season God has faithfully provided for us financially. Money in the mail, back pay from social security and a well paying side job. For a few months we were paying a mortgage and rent, cash flow was tight. God also richly supported us spiritually. Again, our small group was right there with us, friends from all over the country, and one of our church pastors were praying, encouraging and offering counsel. Along with physical labor and a place to stay, we were lovingly covered.
I’m not sure I’d have survived without it
Ultimately though, personal growth is simply that, personal. We can choose to embrace it and experience the process with it’s pain and hurt, and live to enjoy the rich benefits of it. Or we can fight, avoid, delay and postpone. It’s not easy, it requires enormous levels of trust in a good God. And it always asks for sacrifice of our own desires/plans for His.
But ohhh the rewards
Being freed of childhood wounds and the kinds of behaviors they develop is one of those things that’s impossible to measure. Bruce and I have found that it brings an incredible sense of internal peace. How anyone can manage to progress through these seasons without the help of the Holy Spirit is beyond us! We also know that it’s not over. We’ll be ‘under construction’ till the day we see Jesus. That’s simply fact.
I think the other freeing piece of this journey is letting go. Setting aside the cultural expectations of what to do with money, housing, work, retirement, possessions and all the usual parts of normal American life. It’s given us a new perspective and a different way of thinking. We’ve always been people who wanted to do what we could to help build God’s kingdom into our own, and other’s lives. But it was always coupled with the traditional kinds of life stages and traditional types of church involvement.
Gone!
We really don’t know where we will land one day, or what that will look like. Oh we have some ideas and hopes, but we are truly in a place where we can be taken anywhere.
Let it all begin!
As we wait on our house to close and our RV to deliver (we’ve already put money down on one) we’re looking ahead to the next few months and what they might look like. All our plans are tentative. We even had trouble telling the RV dealership where we wanted to have our home delivered! But just like everything else through this season, we have confidence that it will all work out well.
Back to the last part of my original question…”WHY NOW?”
The only answer I can come up with is…
Because it’s time
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