almost dancing

Several people have asked me about school recently – when I finish, if I’m excited, if I’ll stay in San Diego, where I might want to work. It’s wild that those are even questions to be answered already. Didn’t I just get here? What happened? It feels like I moved yesterday; like I applied to grad school and waited with eager anticipation to hear whether or not I even got accepted just last week. Now it’s over and I’m not sure what to do with that. There’s a lot of emotion there, which is why I sometimes respond with tears instead of words when I talk about it. It’s because I don’t want to feel this way. I want to be entirely excited, not just a little bit. I want to be on cloud 9 that I “made it,” completed something that I anticipated for so long and looked forward to with probably the most excitement I’ve ever had about anything. I also just really love school. For some reason I love being a student and that love has deepened as I’ve gotten older, oddly. I think that is partially because it’s what I’m used to. When you’re a student, everything is still ahead of you. The unknowns are scary and thrilling when you’re super young and have zero idea what life will look like and what career you may or may not have, and all you want is to know the future. But looking back, I miss that part. I actually long for that anticipation again. It was always the feeling of working towards something and like there was so much potential out there that gave me some kind of adrenaline rush. The freedom that came with being able to seriously consider, “do I want to be a traveling photojournalist or a wedding planner?” and not knowing it would end up being neither of those, and not having to make any serious decisions about it yet was so much fun. I guess it’s a good thing then that I’m entering a profession that is constantly changing and adapting to the needs of people and the culture around us. There will always be new things to learn, new skills to build, and old ones to brush up on. That said, I realize there are still plenty of unknowns out there that are keeping me excited and forcing me to put my trust in God over anything or anyone else, and I am thankful for that.

Where am I going with this…

Gosh, I don’t know. I think I just need to put it “on paper,” so to speak. I spent three years in school learning how to tell people “there’s room for more than one emotion at a time,” and “it’s okay to let yourself feel all of it,” but when it comes down to it, I don’t really let myself believe that. I avoid the difficult emotions. Like the plague. (Or coronavirus… too soon?) I guess this is just me admitting to myself that much of me is struggling with being really sad right now. I’m battling it hard because I feel like if I let myself truly acknowledge it, I won’t be able to see the good or find the joy again. (Which is totally unrealistic and not at all true.)

I’m sad about a lot of things. Sad that I got a taste of being in grad school in person for 1.5 semesters and then lost that in the face of the pandemic. I feel like I was robbed and like I didn’t glean quite as much as I could have because it is honestly so hard to stay focused and motivated in online classes every single week for a year and a half. That’s not what I signed up for.

I’m sad about the end of it. Endings just make me sad in general. I always say that “goodbye” isn’t in my vocabulary, so I’m just going to stick with “see you later,” when it comes to people and stages of life, I guess.

And I’m just sad that I’m feeling sad, in general! I want to somehow snap myself out of it and I keep saying, “you should be excited about this.” But maybe that’s part of the problem. It never helps to tell ourselves (or anyone) how we should feel. Cause regardless of how I “should” feel right now, this is how I do feel. This is how it is. Just grief all over the place. And that’s okay. That’s how it goes sometimes.

We grieve so many things in life. Ask anyone you know right now and I bet they could identify one, if not a few, things they are currently grieving the loss of – whether a dream, a desire, a loved one, a stage of life, an expectation, a relationship. We weren’t designed to cope with death in any capacity. But we were designed for a relationship with the God who knows the deepest parts of our hearts and where we hurt the most; the God who sits with us in the grief and cares about how it feels to us because He is no stranger to those feelings.

He weeps with us.

I recently read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the book of John. For some reason, it never occurred to me until now just how grieved Jesus was over Lazarus’s death, and over the sadness that He saw his friends and loved ones experiencing. He wept with them (11:35). Why is that so telling and so important to note? First of all, what a perfect example of the humanity of Jesus. He truly was as human as it gets, minus the sin, obviously. He experienced emotions and the challenges associated with life and death and relationships so that He could (and still can) sympathize and empathize with us (Hebrews 4:15). But another noteworthy aspect of this is that Jesus was literally moments away from raising Lazarus from the dead – he knew the outcome, yet he stopped to embrace the sorrow and devastation with the people who were grieving in that moment. Jesus was empathizing with them. Their feelings are what mattered to Him, so He let Himself feel what they were feeling, yet He didn’t stay there. He weeps with us. He sees what we go through, He feels what we feel and He wants to help us through it. Last and most important is that if Lazarus had not died, the glory of God would not have been revealed the way it was. John 11:4 says, “When Jesus heard that, He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'” There is purpose in the sadness.

The words that keep ringing in my head right now are from the book of Esther, “for such a time as this” (4:14).

I know God knew before I was born that I would end up going to graduate school during a pandemic, preparing to enter the field of mental health when many people will be at their most vulnerable, emotional, grieved, confused, and struggling state of mind, needing therapy.

I went to school exactly when I did for such a time as this. Had I known, I probably wouldn’t have picked this particular timing, but then again, it’s not about me. I said earlier “that’s not what I signed up for.” And it’s not. it can’t be… What I signed up for was what God had in store. Just because it didn’t look the way I expected it to doesn’t mean it wasn’t His plan all along. I heard someone very wise recently say “just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s not the will of God” and I couldn’t agree more.

As odd and confusing as it may sound, I firmly believe the things we experience are always for such a time as this. In other words, for a very specific purpose that is completely by design. And ultimately, that purpose is to showcase His glory right now; to shine brightly for Him right now; to learn trust, to be “joyful in hope” and “patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12), to become built up and rooted in faith (Colossians 2:7), to be stronger than ever because His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Nothing is without purpose, whether we understand that purpose or not.

Lest I be tempted to stay stuck in the sadness, the Lord reminded me that there is joy after there is sorrow.

“Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Psalm 30:5b

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”

Psalm 30:11-12

What I’m finding to be true is that if I don’t acknowledge the sorrow of the night, it makes it more difficult to notice and truly appreciate the joy that comes in the morning. And not only do I want to notice it and appreciate it, but I want its purpose to reach fulfillment – “that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.”

Whether we are mourning or dancing, the Lord is there doing it right along with us, weaving His purposes into every moment of our circumstances for the glory of His name.

I’m slowly coming out of the mourning, but processing the end of one season and ushering in a new and exciting and challenging one all at once is quite the task. So for now I’ll say, by the grace of God, I am done with school, I am working, and I am working through a lot of things. It’s all good. And by the grace of God…

I am almost dancing!