Have you ever gone through something, or have something on your mind, but can't put it into words? Then, do you ever find the most perfect words you could have never thought of yourself, and yet they give life and a tangible explanation of your feelings?
All this to say, I found the most perfect quote today:
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis
This has been a crazy, strange, exciting, lovely, hard, ugly, tough, beautiful, and challenging year. (Yes, all of those adjectives and more.) Let me explain a few of these. First of all, it has been a lovely, beautiful and exciting year because I have begun the journey of marriage with my best friend, Trenton. Our first year has been unexpected, and yet my love for him has grown to deeper levels than I ever thought possible. Having your best friend by your side, and next to you in bed each night, is wonderful. I've always been a rather independent individual, so I never realized how much having someone there to talk to, lean on, and laugh with all the time could be so great. However, even though being married to Trent has made this year the best one of my life thus far, it has also been one of the most challenging years. First, we graduated college last May. Moving onto the "real world" was exciting and a bit scary. Then Trent and I moved to Holland because Trent planned to go to Seminary. After my first whirling and crazy semester as a teacher/ theatre director, and a tough first semester for Trenton, we had to reassess a little bit. We both felt as though Seminary wasn't feeling like the right fit for either of us. I think Trent had planned on feeling more excited about his classes and his potential work in a church, and yet he instead felt confused and disappointed. And I, having moved into Seminary housing, had planned on making new friends and feeling at home, and yet I just never did. So, together, Trent and I decided that Seminary was not right for us, so Trent un-enrolled after the first semester. This felt a bit scary and uncertain, but definitely felt right. After this, my second semester began, I picked up another class, and the craziest times of my theatre season began. I was gone most days for 12 or more hours. During this time, Trent was looking for a job. He had a hard time finding one for a long time and this began to really get him down. He felt lonely, uncertain, and frustrated. Finally a couple months later he found a job that gave every impression of being "perfect" for him. However, soon after, we again realized that this was most definitely not the place for him. His time there was tough and very challenging. It was hard on both of us. Recently Trent ended his time at this job and so now we have moved back into the job-searching area. On top of all of this we have been trying to decide were we would be moving to. We eventually landed on moving to Grand Rapids, which was a little bit hard for me at first. So that's where we are. I just finished my first year at HC, Trent is job-searching, and we are moving to GR. changes changes changes.
It was sometimes hard to not feel like failures or something, since Trent and I kept making so many changes this year. At times it may have looked to people like we just kept quitting and/or changing things because we simply didn't like them. It's hard to explain to each person that we did not make one single decision lightly, and that we truly felt, even though they were hard, that all of the changes were part of God's plan for us.
So here we are, coming on to another new part of this crazy first year of marriage, and I can't help feel like that C.S. Lewis quote is perfect. This year has been like crossing monkey bars. It has been tiring and taxing, but if we hadn't moved forward and grabbed the next bar, the next thing God was telling us, we would have never made it through.
Despite this being a tough year, 90% of the time all I have felt is joy. I feel so blessed to have supportive friends and a family that loves me. It feels amazing to have Trenton by my side. And most of all, I've got God who loves me and will never leave me.
So, needless to say, I am ready to get off of these monkey bars and to get into a place where things feel "normal" again (if that's even really possible :)). All I know is that no matter what, through tough changes and crazy times, God is good, all the time.
