Today two of the "kids" Jer and I had the privilege of working with years ago in our old church's teen group came by. They visited for a bit and, representing a whole group of them, dropped off a beautiful, thoughtful and generous care package they had put together. It's crazy to think that these "kids" are now older than we were when we first started helping out with the teen group.
When I first started working with the teen group, I was going through a really painful time emotionally. A broken engagement and some broken friendships had me licking my wounds, feeling broken myself and very vulnerable. Working with this really special group of "kids" gave me a purpose to focus on outside of feeling sorry for myself. And the blessing of seeing them grow, mature and become the beautiful, confident and amazing people they are today is thrilling.
Before my health issues forced me to step back from a lot of my activities and responsibilities, I was taking a leadership course at our church. While my involvement was short and limited, it was so beneficial in getting me in the right mindset for this fight against cancer. We were in the middle of examining our lives and unpacking the significance of important events, people and experiences in our past through the lens of leadership convergence theory. And the thing that really struck me was that in between each major stage of development was a "boundary time" - a supremely painful, unsettling, difficult time of questioning, struggling that could last anywhere from a month to several years. It's usually an awful time that one wouldn't voluntarily choose to go through, but also one of great growth, blessing and learning. One has to struggle through the boundary time before the next stage of development is ushered in. Pastor Sam, our instructor, mentioned that a lot of these boundary times and developmental stages were influenced by age - roughly a decade give or take between each boundary time.
Looking back on my life so far, this decade or so estimate has held true. I had my first boundary time at 15 when my father passed away from cancer after a 6 month struggle. That propelled me into a time of concentrated individual spiritual growth where the faith I grew up in became my own faith, not just one my parents ascribed to. My second boundary time was at 24 with the broken relationships. It led me to working with the teen group, growing in leadership opportunities, discovering gifts and meeting my husband. And now, it seems pretty evident that this infertility, cancer and family deaths gong show is my third boundary time. In light of this theory, I was about due for a time of struggle anyway :)
Usually when one goes through a difficult time, you can respond either with "there is no God, or if there is, he/she's asleep at the wheel" OR "God is here in the midst of my suffering". I have been so comforted by the passage at the beginning of this post - the fact that God does not slumber - He is watching over us and protecting us. And based on the blessing that came out of the last boundary time, as today's care package reminded me, I can look forward to another great time of learning, growth and blessing to result from this current one.
As a friend recently wrote: "...this is a vulnerable time, and MANY beautiful things are birthed out of vulnerability."
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