Weeks 6 & 7
This weeks truths:
Jesus stays with the outsiders.
I drove past both of my old houses tonight. I drove past the house I babysat at, the place that served as a home to me when my own life fell apart. I drove past my best friend's house, where we watched Gossip Girl and studied for Biology and ate junk food. I drove past 23 years of change in under 10 minutes, and I let it sink in.
Two of my favorite high school sophomores lamented this morning about the many goodbyes they will face in the near future. In the moment, I told them that the goodbyes would get easier someday. But then I thought about whether the goodbyes have actually been easier these past few years, and for the most part they have not. I thought about the waves of grief that accompanied my worst, unresolved goodbyes in high school and the waves of grief that accompany them now. I thought about whether the tears have grown less and the blessings grown more. I thought about all of these things in a split second, and then I took back my statement to these sweet, brokenhearted girls. I told them that the changes would always come, and they may never get easier. But Jesus will always be the same.
The truth is that the emotions associated with change never really let up. You must always grieve the things you've lost and find joy in the new world you're facing. There will always be good days and bad days, and mundane days in between. But in the short eight years that I have on these girls, Jesus has only become more real to me. The worst goodbye I ever had to say I said at sixteen, and so I will never discount a teenager's heartbreak. But I will tell them that God is good. I've seen the blessings that come from what feel like curses, and I've watched flowers grow out from barren dust. Jesus brings redemption in the midst of change, and I continue to learn more about him every day.
So that is what these truths have meant to me these past two weeks. The change finally caught up to me and I'm learning how to live in this new season, but these truths tell me that it will be okay. They tell me that Jesus knows, and that he cares, and that he is the place to plant a life. Being uprooted can hurt, but being planted in the truth brings relief in the end.