I moved to Pittsburgh exactly one week before my wedding day. I wouldn’t advise a game plan like that. A little longer may have worked out better. Or, at least, it wouldn’t have felt quite so rushed leading up to the big day. On the other hand, I don’t think any amount of time eliminates all the things that need to be done the days prior to a wedding. So, it probably didn’t matter a whole lot.
But it was a lot of change in a very short span of time. Moving from Minnesota to Pittsburgh via Indiana – a change that was, in retrospect, huge. I didn’t realize how very different a place Pittsburgh is compared to other places I had lived. The fact that it is next to impossible to navigate being one of those challenges, not to mention that Pittsburghers aren’t really partial to outsiders. A wedding is a lot to take in, even if it is all rather hazy both during and after it takes place. Then there was all the unpacking and trying to figure out where to put stuff in a new place, which followed upon the stress of my stuff arriving later than planned. For me, a new church and new people to introduce yourself to – a challenge when I realized I was no longer single old Melissa Sturm but now newly married Melissa Camus, whoever that was. Then I found a job two weeks after we were married, a huge answer to prayer, but yet another thing to adjust to. Followed by the discovery that I was pregnant with Emry two months later. It was a lot to work through. A lot.
All that may go a long way into explaining why Pittsburgh is not my favorite place. Too much to deal with and work through all at once. Rather like the first time I lived in New Hampshire and faced so much change in so short a time I hated the place. Now, of course, I love New Hampshire. And while I can’t say I’ll ever love Pittsburgh, it certainly holds some dear memories, even though I don’t want to go through that changing period ever again.
Even though our life in Pittsburgh grew comfortable, nearly every day I would look at myself in the mirror and wonder who in the world I was. I felt the well-known mid-thirties single Melissa Sturm had been completely lost. No friends. No restful conversations in coffee shops. No lazy Saturdays. No long bike rides. Little time to read and no time to write. I never could figure out where I fit into the strata of the church. I was no longer the single young woman (or old maid) who taught the kids and knew I didn’t really fit into certain conversations among all the other (married) women my age. But I could have fellowship with them because I was well aware of the my place versus theirs. Now married and soon a mother, I finally“arrived” and yet still felt like I was ousted because I still worked a job, I was a good decade older than other women with kids the age of mine but my kids a good decade younger than the kids of women my own age and I never knew what I was supposed to say in the certain conversations I could now be a part of because my experience as married and a mom were so new I knew practically nothing on either subject. The only time I truly felt like me was when I was at work, doing something I knew I was good at and felt like I could contribute. I spent five years in Pittsburgh walking a balance beam and struggling to figure out who I was, who I had become and, therefore, who I was supposed to be.
I wish I could now say I took all these struggles to the Lord in prayer and came out on the mountaintop of beautiful vistas in the end. But I have to confess my prayer life is now more sporadic as I don’t have long evenings or weekends to spend pouring out my struggles to the Lord. They are more likely to get poured out in spurts in the shower or stirring something on the stove, forgotten as I rush off to break up Emry and Ethan whose playing became fighting. I can honestly say, though, that God hears even those prayers. Which is good, because I’m certainly not at the end yet!
I think we often have the idea that change is immediate. I heard often as a teenager that our lives are like the life of a butterfly. We start as a caterpillar, God puts us in a chrysalis and after a struggle, we come out a beautiful butterfly! In essence, that is the case…but it isn’t reality. Our struggle – our sanctification – takes a lot longer than the brief struggle a butterfly has as it leaves behind the chrysalis where it had lain passive as it changed from a caterpillar. By nature, humans are not passive. Even if we desire change, we often fight it tooth and nail. And the struggle is rarely brief, thanks to our stubborn personalities. If only we were butterflies!
Even as I write this, I am reminded how I continue to fight the change from being single to being married and a mom. The move to Indiana has certainly brought some closure to who I now am. I meet other wives and moms at church, and I’m just one of them. Conversations no longer feel awkward and stilted, even if I feel I still have very little to contribute to them. It has taken several years, but God has brought me to the acceptance of this part of His sovereign will in my life – mostly. For there are still days when I would give my very life for a mere half hour of quiet time to read or write without work e-mails to answer, Emry tiptoeing in when she should be taking a nap or laundry piling up. But the struggle is me, not God. It is me focusing on who I wish I could be instead of seeing the beauty in who God is sanctifying me to be. My life is forever changing. It has to be so. For if I am not changing then I am not being made into the image of God. And becoming more like God is who I want to be! Because my identity isn’t what truly matters. It is who God is that matters. And the more I am made like God, the more I reflect Him to others.
No comments:
Post a Comment