I recently heard this phrase and it really hit a cord within my deepest heart.
“You can’t push when you’re in transition.”
Um, yep…I’ve had first hand experience with this fact. The person who said it (and I wish I could give them credit for it but I heard it on the radio and don’t remember who it was exactly) well, they weren’t referring to childbirth, but that’s how it resonated with me. After having three children, one with an epidural and two without, I know the feeling of transition.
It was different with all three but the second birth I experienced was the one I remember the most of what it’s like to go through transition.
I started laboring around 5:30am and decided to sit in my rocking chair in the living room. I woke up my husband to join me but told him to go back to sleep on the couch. I was sure I was in for many many hours of labor ahead of me, but I wanted him to be near me just in case.
By 6am, things were moving along quite rapidly and I woke him up by throwing my slippers at him, told him to go shower and call the grandma’s…this baby was on its way!
By 6:30am, I was in full-blown transition. I just didn’t know it. This was nothing of what I had experienced with our first child and it was totally freaking me out!
There is not a lot of room in a woman’s body for the baby to do what it needs to do, so it still amazes me that the birthing process takes as long as it does. But God has a reason for that…He knows we are slow to take things in most of the time and our brain needs time to process the reality of what is happening.
I did everything I could do get comfortable. The rocking chair wasn’t working, the exercise ball wasn’t working, walking or standing wasn’t working. So, by 7am, the way my husband found me in the living room was quite a shock…on my hands and knees doing “cat stretches”. That was the only thing that was remotely comfortable…and I use that word sparingly. Ha!
What I was experiencing was in fact, transition. That sweet little babe of ours was making her way to meet us. And as slow as the process seemed, it actually happened quite fast. By the time we got to the hospital at 7:20am, I was in the birthing room at 7:30am and she was born at 7:48am! Yep….very quick!
As much as I wanted to have that baby, I could not push in the transition phase. It wasn’t possible anyway. No amount of willpower could have worked.
I simply had to go through it!
So if you’re still hanging with me here through my story…here’s the tie-in for transitions in life.
You cannot make a transition in your life happen any faster than it is meant to be.
To graduate from college, you’ve got to take the classes and do the work and it will usually take ya about 4 years to accomplish this goal.
When you buy a house, it normally takes many months to find “the perfect one”, then you put in the bid, then you go through escrow, then it’s yours! Unless that first bid falls through and you’re back in the searching phase until you find the one that all falls into place.
If you’re cooking a gourmet meal, it takes more than a few minutes. You have to do all the prep of shopping for the ingredients, chopping, slicing, measuring, marinating, etc., then the cooking….and then the eating!
But the transitions that are something the most difficult is when there is not a specific timeline that you can count on. Those are the times where the faith and trust we have in the Lord’s plan for our lives comes in full force.
You can’t push past the lessons that need to be learned. I mean, you can, but instead of moving yourself forward, you are really taking tremendous leaps backwards. There are necessary reasons why the Lord takes us down one path and someone else down a different path. We are all different and we all have something special to learn and grow through in order to give us the story and testimony that God intends for us to have.
Transition literally means*: movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change.
Just as baby must go through changes to become a toddler, then a young child, to a teen, then an adult (and various stages of adulthood!); we too have spiritual stages we travel through.
I Corinthians 13:10-12 describes transition to us this way, “But when that which is complete and perfect comes, that which is incomplete and partial will pass away. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God]. “
Each phase of life we go through, transitions will come and go. They have to make us feel unstable though. Standing firm in the foundation of God’s truth, we will always find stability to make it through each challenge we face. It is in those moments we can cry out to the Lord and ask Him to help us, to hold us, to keep us standing in the midst of transition and difficulty.
When a toddler is learning to walk and falls down, their parents don’t say, “Well, you tried that walking thing and it didn’t work out. We’ll just carry you around forever.” Quite the opposite! They applaud that sweet child for their efforts and encourage them to get up and try again. I bet you can look back over your life, or over the past month for that matter, and see how God has used others to encourage you to get back up and try again. Because He knows that as you grow and transition into new stages of your life, you can use your experiences to encourage other people to do the same! Get up and try again!
Isaiah 33:6 AMP “And He will be the security and stability of your times, a treasure of salvation, wisdom and knowledge; The fear of the Lord is your treasure.”
The Lord will always be our stability at each stage of life; personal, emotional, spiritual, and everything in between. He is the foundation we need to stand on (or kneel on!) when we are weaving through the stages of transition in our life. Going through something difficult is when we must rely on His strength. We can find a prayerful position to be in as we go through the transition. The pain, exhaustion, questioning, frustration ~ it’s all worth it in the end when we realize what God was getting ready to birth within us or from us!
Don’t fight it ~ engage in it! There are various amounts of struggle that comes with transition…that struggle doesn’t mean you are doing the wrong thing. God is stretching you and what comes to fruition because of it, will be glorious!!
I’d love to hear what God is birthing in your heart & soul today! Feel free to share!! Because when we share our dreams out loud, they are given a new life and the freedom we can experience is remarkable!
Ephesians 4:15 AMP says, “But speaking the truth in love [in all things—both our speech and our lives expressing His truth], let us grow up in all things into Him [following His example] who is the Head—Christ.”
Blessings,
René
*https://www.dictionary.com/browse/transition
Broken & Blessed~Adventures in Gratutide! 