Don’t despise the seasons of pressure

This has been one of those posts that’s been rattling around my brain for a while, but because of the more tedious issues of life, I just haven’t had the capacity to wrap real words around my thoughts. It’s been easier to tuck them away into Evernote placing them in the blog cue behind more exciting things like birthday parties and Christmas goodies.

But I can’t get away from it. Every book I pick up, every post I read, even the stories I read my children are all shouting at me to write, to share, to express what’s been bubbling up in my heart because I need to tell about what God’s been doing in me. Despite me.

2012 was a really difficult year for us. Some of you knew that. Some of you guessed. It wasn’t just one thing, but a series of many little things and a few big things stretching from January to December that spelled s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e for our family. A few weeks ago I revisited some of my early posts as a baby blogger and realized that 2012 wasn’t so much an isolated challenge of a year as much as it was an extension of a season we’d already been living. I had hoped that the advent of 2013 would somehow make everything different, but we’ve limped into a new year that so far looks uncannily like the old. The clouds are lifting, but not as quickly as we’d hoped.

Despite waiting for the miraculous. Despite being frustrated with where we’re at in life. Despite my fear and questions and the wrestling I do with my faith, I cannot get past the fact that God is somehow working the circumstances of my life into something good. Maybe even something beautiful. Even though I can’t see it. Even though I don’t understand it. Even though I would very much like this season to be over.

My friend Kara sent me this quote (originally found here) during a particularly difficult stretch last year. All I wanted was for God to make things better. No matter what. No matter how. And immediately, thank-you-very-much. But in desiring a quick end to the struggle I completely missed the point God was trying to gently make in my life.

This season – as long and frustrating as it is – is transitional. It’s not forever. It’s not the end. Through the events of the last twelve months (and really the last four years) God has been slowly changing me, working out my rough spots and helping me grow.

Eventually I will be something I am not right now.

Eventually I will be more of who God created me to be and less of who I am today.

Even though it hurts, I would much rather be a butterfly or a diamond, than a caterpillar or coal.

I’ve reached the point in this journey that I’m ready to share some of the struggle. Some of the victory. Some of the defeat. Over the next few weeks as I’m able to wrestle it out, I’m going to get a little personal with the hope that someone else might benefit from this story and be inspired to believe that despite what might be making life ugly, they are being turned into something beautiful too.