Transition…

n.

1. Passage from one form, state, style, or place to another.

2. 1. Passage from one subject to another in discourse.

   2. A word, phrase, sentence, or series of sentencesconnecting one part of a discourse to another.

   3. A modulation, especially a brief one.

   4. A passage connecting two themes or sections.

3. Music

   1. A modulation, especially a brief one.

4. A period during childbirth that precedes the expulsive phase of labor, characterized by strong uterine contractions and nearly complete cervical dilation.

   
   

I find myself in a place of change. It’s a change wrought over two and a half years of hardship- two and a half years of God taking hold of my life- two and a half years of finding that I belonged to Him and no other. Two and a half years of learning to trust. Two and a half years of learning to let go, lean back, drink of the wild and tremulous love of Christ.

Fingers trace along the line of counted blessings, and I marvel. Can this be? What seemed the darkest days then seems to me now a precious time, paid for in tears and sorrow. We lovers of God- I wonder if we become so mindful of the Glory that we forget the Cross? That we forget the sorrow? He promised there would be much of it in our lives. And yet we wish, yet I wish, to go from joy to joy and glory to glory without the hard and narrow path that leaves blisters and weary muscles. Paul whispers of the long journey, the marathon race- no quick sprints here. Heart heaving, breath catching run that seems to spread out before us, endless. But it does have an end- and will I come to the end with weary muscles but strong heart? It seems there is no path more fitted for strength than that of weakness.

I wonder at this. And I wonder at the place I find myself now. A wonderful place, and yet a strange, terrifying place too. It is time for wings to open, time to set off and fly. I realized rather unconsciously that I had been collecting bird paraphernalia over the last few months- a robin’s nest, tiffany blue eggs, adorns my computer’s desktop. A sweet little carved green bird with swirls sits next to my Bible. My office folders are covered with florals and birds in all manner of flight. Every ATC I make has wings in some sort or another, butterfly wing, bird wing, dragonfly. It is funny how our heart is speaking even when our brain is not attending the messages.

I keep thinking of the idea of transition. Of the curled caterpillar breaking through the chrysalis, of the woman in her travails, ever so close to new life uncurling within her and stretching long…

My transitions in labor have been such a strange place. I do not labor well and always have to be assisted with the drug Pitocin. Once it has been added, the labor progresses quickly, often leaving my unmindful of what is happening within my body. But transition- I always notice it because I begin to cry, seemingly for no reason at all. Of course, science will tell that there is a huge hormone surge at that moment as the body moves into the last stages of labor- but for me, it always surprises. My husband can tell you that transition is always when I, strong and capable, suddenly crumble. I cry and exclaim that I can’t do it anymore, and why can’t the baby just be here? The irony is that it is so very close and the baby will soon be in my arms- but it is almost as if I lose track, grow weary, grow weak. And then suddenly, time to push, and the next thing you know, there is baby. There is life. LIFE!

The comparison is so apt. This gift of transition. This is my scribble here…to mark out this moment. To notice my weakness, to realize that I am moving into a place of joy, and I just need to let go. Need to be weak, need to stretch long, strengthen knee…

and fly.