I’ve been off for 3 weeks and wrapped up 2019 with a lot of reflection. We didn’t travel much, but we spent oodles of time with family and lots of lounging around the house, cleaning and organizing. As we started 2020 I found myself being bold. I have made my resolve and plan to only pursue things that fill up my soul. I have fully embraced “It is well with my soul”, but I’ve learned that I have to keep after it. I talk a lot about uglies. I got them, you got ’em, and I read this from one of my moms, “Don’t let the ugly in others kill the beauty in you”. That struck me straight in the heart. I was thinking about something I used to say in my past life, “I’m not in that season right now, I’m in a Winter”. Now for me seasons can mean so many things…like Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall or single, dating, married, parenting or salt & pepper. Whether it’s literal or figurative what I was really saying was “you don’t know me and the struggle I’m in right now and I’m not talking to God about it either”. So yeah I was in a harsh winter of my own misery. The thing about seasons or by declaring and assigning these abstract titles to ones time on Earth seems much like exclusion or compartmentalizing each stage of life. And what I find to be more true is, that’s not possible. I was trying to define grief and why I was running from a relationship with God. The truth is we’re all born with the uglies, but we either embrace them and take them to Jesus or we try to bury them all the while spreading them. It was an excuse.
Seasons aside we’re all here to figure out life and what that looks like amongst others. There is no definitive time, but a continuous time that melts into another moment. I truly like to believe that it all works together. That each moment builds upon the next one. You try something once and you learn something new and then you carry those lessons with you and each lesson prepares you for the next moment. What I think I find is that with exclusion we can forget some of those lessons. We close a chapter and dust off our hands and say ok on to the next chapter. As I watch my moms be grandmas I have to think they know this, that’s why they find the balance of stepping in and staying quiet. They reach in when we need it and they let go when we are stepping into a new role. Maybe that’s more like it…roles. One day I was Erin Olson and the next role I was Erin Perez, then I was mom and teacher. Each roll makes up all of ME, but I have transitional cues that tell me how to respond, but underneath it all each of those roles makes up who ERIN is and continues to become.
I think the thing I wrestle most with right now and what I will continue to work through is, time. I have grown in the waiting, but maybe I’m not mindful of the process and the hard work it takes to grow. I know the end result in my head or my desired end result, I think that it should happen now or next week maybe. Thankfully I’m always met where I am and as this is sitting on my heart I was reminded success does not happen overnight. An author shared this, “..that everything good and worth it, takes time, and generally way more time than we like to imagine. So let’s give it time, whatever it is…Good things take time. Keep going.” The reality that is setting in more and more is that not only do I need time or the fact that I need to allow for it, but I need people. I need people that are in various “seasons” I don’t want to say age because I don’t think that defines the moment you’re in, but what I know is that relating and having empathy for those that are different or are in different situations is exactly what I’m called to do. It’s when I’m least humble that I find myself relating less and less to those around me. I don’t have to understand or had to have had the same experience, because the end result doesn’t matter if I do. My kindness doesn’t depend on my relatability.
The reality is that the uglies I dealt with in the past may not have been reflected on the outside to others, but it was hurting my relationship with God and myself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again the longest relationship we have here on Earth is the one we have with ourselves and eventually I hope my days walking with Jesus out number my days running from Him. But here I am in the middle. Some of the relationships I currently have will begin to out number the days I had with my mom. And I’m ok with that, but it’s a lot to wrap my mind around. I don’t want to chunk my time here because I can’t. Defining my life with my mom and my life without my mom doesn’t compute. Sometimes I don’t even feel like she’s gone, I just haven’t seen her in a long time. I miss her and I want to hug her when the time is right. And I’ll wait. I’ve learned as impulsive as I am, I’ve learned to wait. This caught my eye as well, “Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.” well then, that challenged me. But truly I want to be a doer, faith in action kind of person. So my word for this year is consistency. I want to be consistent in my behavior lining up with my beliefs even when…it’s hard, I don’t feel like it, I’m selfish, insert every other excuse under the sun. Instead of excusing my behavior and choices I just want to be honest. I’m entering middle age and I’m going to work on that being well with my soul. ENTERING! I’m not there yet, but I want to be more at peace with it then I was with 30. I’ve learned so much since that struggle and like I said lessons upon lessons. I’m going to do better.
I think I get it a little more, after writing all of this out and checking scripture, Ecclesiastes 3 says: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
I have experienced many of these things, and I’ve noticed that time is a collision. I have been sad and joyful at the same time. I have lost and at the very same moment gained. It’s a cycle, a never ending cycle and things don’t happen linearly and there is no definition of time when things happen, but they will happen. I guess I need to rest there for a second.
It is well with my Soul 