Interruptions and Invitations
I met with my advisor a few weeks ago as I am only a few courses away from finishing my Master’s Degree in Counselling. We discussed the process for my practicum and internship, and then she asked me my estimated timeline for finishing. It was at this point that I said, “Well, there will be a delay as I’m going in for surgery this winter and I’m not sure how the recovery will go”. She stopped abruptly to ask me more about it but then advised me to take a leave of absence during my recovery time and then pick up where I left off once I returned.
This all made sense, was good advice, considerate of my needs but after our meeting was over, I felt utterly deflated. I just want to finish my degree. I’m so close. I’ve got momentum, I’m ready to go, but I can’t. There will be an interruption in my progress.
Since then, I’ve been growing weary, and impatient.
Yesterday, I took some time to talk with God about everything, reached out to a few close friends to ask for prayer support, and spent the day leaning into the tension of this sense of interruption that I feel is happening in my life.
I felt an old familiar sadness creep in and I cried warm tears that welled up from the very core of my being. You know those kinds of tears when you have let things build inside of you for a while.
Since my surgery seven months ago, I had three good months of pain-free living until things went sideways. But it was a taste. A really good taste of what normal might feel like. Like the old me, the young me, the 24-year-old me, before I got sick. And those memories taunt me, reminding me what it felt like to wake up without pain, go for a run with my neighbor, hike a mountain with my husband, and not be hindered by anything. It was so short-lived and at times, it feels like it was just yesterday.
I know I should be grateful because even health to the age of 24 is a gift that many haven’t had.
The thing is though, I want more. I do. And God sometimes doesn’t seem to care that that matters to me.
But …He does.
Yesterday, as I journalled, read, listened to podcasts, and spent time in silence, I sensed that God was inviting me to wonder. What if this is not an interruption? What if this time of surgery and recovery is part of the training that I need to be the counsellor God is calling me to be? What if my path ahead is one where I model a lived experience of what it means to rely on God and have patience, endurance, humility, courage, and creativity in hard times? If I only speak the words but resist them in my own life, any advice I give will be weak.
So, in a well-practiced way, I sighed a giant sigh, and surrendered my will, again, to what God has in mind and then spent the rest of the day playing around with watercolors and writing words on little signs that remind me to trust God. I felt a growing lightness in my spirit, a diminishing tension, losses grieved and hope stirred. I’m learning to grieve, to lament, to feel all the feelings but then to do the next thing.
It was a good day. And I know that I will be back here again when I’m tempted to compare my life with others when I’m weary, and when I lose sight of my loving God whose purposes are far beyond my understanding. And I hope you know that you can have those kinds of days too. God will provide what you need, in His way, in His timing, and His wisdom.
Take good care of yourselves, friends. 💕