9 Tips for Thriving in Transition

Our little apartment once again is sprouting totes and little growing piles in the closets of “to take on our travels” things. We are preparing ourselves, the best we’ve learned how, as we head straight for our 11th transition season from one location to another in the last four years. Eager with the aura of an archaeologist as he fingers the lock on an ancient treasure chest, I’m opening up my collection of transition tips once again. With delight, I will spend time looking at our favorites, routines and tips that have been helpful friends in the past, delighted to find them waiting and ready for another season of good use. Wouldn’t you like to have me share some of the secrets to transitioning well that we’ve been hunting down and stocking up on these last years?

Thanks to Leonardo Yip at Unsplash for the pretty photo!

(If you are someone who has done or is doing a lot of transition too, I would be thrilled for you to send me your own treasury of thriving tips!)

And my treasure box lid swings open...

1. As transition approaches, several weeks before your actual move or departure, make a little quiet space to sit as a family. (You could even add in mugs of peppermint mocha or whatever drink you love to swirl to life in your kitchen!) Talk about and make a list of important places and people that you want to visit again before you leave, and incorporate that into the days left on your calendar. Give some intentionality and forethought into making those visits meaningful. Such as:

• make or buy little meaningful gifts for people and say how special or significant they have been in your life. (Family photo? Candy for children? Something that symbolizes your relationship with that friend?)

• Think of questions to ask before a visit to a friend such as “how can I pray for you?” or “what is your biggest joy/challenge right now?” which will help give you a meaningful goodbye connection. Or you might have a specific topic that you feel led to connect on before leaving, and that’s also wonderful.

• Decide together on a favorite street vendor or food place to visit one last time, and use the time to talk about how everyone feels the transition is going and how it makes them feel to be leaving, as well as the upcoming “arriving”. Pray together. God hears and likes when we don’t try to do it on our own.

2. This tip is from a family we love and met a couple years ago while abroad. Brian and Katie told us that they found immense benefit in their organization’s requirement that they create a space of time in-between countries to take a breath emotionally. For example, if you were living abroad in Morocco but going “home” for a few months to Peru, book a flight with a 2-4 day layover in Spain. Use the time to be quiet and unwind, saying “goodbye” to the last season and taking a deep breath before planning your furlough and time back “home”. We have never tried this for several reasons, and I think we tend to start winding down a week or so before we leave, thus giving us a bit of breathing space. However, if you are unable to do that and coming home looks like a big adjustment, this might be the perfect thing to help you thrive.

3. We picked this treasure tip up at the home of a family we know and respect who have raised their family on a foreign field. One or two days before you leave, set apart two special meal times. Here’s what you will do: at one meal, you will go around the table and have everyone say things they will miss from where you have been living and the things that make them sad about the transition. At the next one, go around the table and dream together of exciting prospects about the place where you’re going. This gives an opportunity to help each one find closure, which makes space in the heart to get excited about what’s ahead. This is something that we always do as a couple and have found to be very helpful!

4. This one is holding hands with number three, so hopefully your heart will swing from the one right to the other. Here it is: After focusing on the things that are changing in your transition season, turn the page and focus on the things that will never budge. There are so many things that change in a season of transition; new location, new ministry, new season, new people. It’s so easy to be so befuddled in all of those changes that we completely forget about the things that will never change. God’s Word will always be the same. His faithfulness will last and last, never running out of date or failing to show up when we need it most. His love encompasses both the past season and the one coming up, and even bridges the space in the middle.

5. Find things to laugh about. Miss Creativity will be your sweet handmaiden  in this task! Some of the things we’ve laughed a lot over include...

• being told, “We need more people like you to leave.” (They were trying to say that they thought we were good people!)

• being told, “It’s good to see you go!” (This person must’ve been trying to say that they liked the reason we were leaving, or maybe that they were glad to know that someone in their neighborhood was stepping out for a good cause. They meant well. We just thought it was really funny how it sounded!)

• being told, “HOW did your daughter get so cute??” (Obviously not from me!)

• the fun of seeing God providing when He promised He would but we didn’t know how it would happen.

• The jar of smooth peanut butter in a foreign store which sits beside the “crunchy” jar, and bears the label, “smoothy”.

6. Realize that transitions will be messy. (For elaboration on this and so much more, read Looming Transitions by Amy Young.) Simply knowing that transitions cause stress and that everything won’t happen perfectly can really help. You will probably forget something in your packing, miss doing something you meant to do, and get upset at someone when you didn’t mean to. Knowing that there’s a 99.9% chance that there will be some sort of “messy moments” can help in letting go of your drivenness to “do it perfectly”. Letting yourself have some grace can also help you realize that the people around you aren’t trying to be irritating or aggravating, but rather you’re dealing with a lot emotionally and physically. Take a deep breath and relax. Transition is just another season.

7. As a practical tip, choose a few meaningful decor items along with you from place to place to give a sense of continuity and “home” wherever you go. I like to bring lightweight, bright and cheery items that can easily make any room feel attractive to me. A little wooden or metal book stand can hold many kinds of different decorations and display a photo, a pretty goodbye card from a friend, a family photo book, a plate, or any other number of things you may wish to display as simple, easy decor! Colorful scarves can double as cushioning for odd shaped items in your suitcase as well as elegant attire for windows, dressers, or anything else that needs some help in the color department. Now that I have a daughter, I am trying to keep some things the same wherever we go. Favorite board books and a familiar lullaby at night are two of the things I’ve done so far.

8. Say “good goodbyes”. Cry if you feel like it. Help your children say goodbye to things and places that they will miss. Many times we like to say “goodbye” to rooms in a house, remembering like a video on fast-forward all the many memories made in each room, in a sense “wrapping them up” and carefully packing them away for future enjoyment, enshrouded in the grace of God.

9. Celebrate the freshness that a transition can bring! When life is exactly the same for too long, one can start to lose perspective; whereas a change can help you see things differently, with "new eyes". I suppose I could also mention that waters of transition can be so choppy and rough that you will not be able to stagnate very easily! I find that as I follow Christ in obedience through transitions I am kept spiritually “on my toes” and actively pursuing God. There are many challenges in times of transition; but the good side is that at least amidst your transitions, you don’t have to struggle with monotony and a boring life!

Can you add anything to my list? Please share, for it might be something that I need in this season!

They Thought it Was Gold

Photo: thanks to Pixabay

You know how it is at the airport TSA. You wait in line for a long time, and finally you get to the tables and stacks of empty plastic bins where you can start readying you and your things for security screening. A collective feeling of “let’s get over with this” permeates the air like Jodhpur smog. Peel off your shoes, your jacket. Make a sweet effort to follow the instructions as you place your belongings on the TSA belt. Locate the bag holding your toothpaste and soap and all those goodies and place it in a plastic bin. If they ask you to display your snacks in a tray as well, try to dig them out of all the nooks and crannies between books, baby toys, diapers and baby blankets. Recall fondly the times when you missed something and nobody cared, and the times when they pulled you over and you had a good laugh with them over your massive bag of salted almonds prepared to last you for the next three months.

Okay now. It’s time to take a deep breath, and walk right on through the metal detector. No beeps? So far so good! Wait with all the other haggard, shoeless travelers beside the conveyer belt as bags slowly roll through the machine, past the watchful eyes of the security guy. The brain part of you is happy that he is pulling off so many bags to be checked; after all, we do want them to catch the bad guys, don’t we! But the lung part of you holds her breath, hoping there was nothing you forgot in your packing which will be labeled suspicious and call you out for special attention.

That was exactly where I was late Monday afternoon. I had tried so hard to make sure my bags would pass through TSA without a glitch and land me happily at our gate to relax. Jonathan and I love the feeling of getting past check-in and security and settling down beside majestic, tall windows where we can watch the planes and the many colorfully interesting people you can see in such places.

We weren’t there yet, however.

I saw with chagrin that although my bag had come through without a beep, Jonathan’s backpack had been pulled aside and was sitting there with a dejected-looking row of other people’s bags. While Jonathan slipped back into his shoes and belt, jingling his coins back into his change pocket along with the nail clippers, I grabbed Joy and my bulging handbag and found a seat where I could re-organize things and wait for the backpack.

We watched among other interesting scenes, two guys waiting as their five to ten large bags of M&Ms were swiped with a drug-detecting wipe while the guard chatted amiably about disgusting new flavors of candy.

After about ten minutes of waiting on the other bags, it was our turn. “Do you have any idea what this is about?” Jonathan whispered to me. “Not a clue!” Without giving us any more suspense, the detective unzipped the front pocket and proceeded to pull out Jonathan’s black Bible. Holding it with both hands, he flipped through the pages and gave it a careful look.

We glanced at his face for an explanation.

“The gold.” He stated. “It showed up as gold. I guess it was the gold edged pages.” The uniformed man returned the Book and zipped the worn black and green backpack back up. “Bye now.”

Photo: thanks to Pixabay

As I lugged my precious daughter and handbag up the corridor towards gate A-2, my heart felt warm at the memory of that precious Book making the machine blink respectfully. “Yes, it is gold,” I thought. “Pure, tested, tried, solid gold! Not just gilded, but gold the whole way through.”

And so, as the hundreds of people milled around us, lazily charging their phones or racing in high heels and flapping bags to try not to miss their flights, I pulled out Jonathan’s Bible and put some of its gold deep into the treasure bank of my heart.

Are you stocking up on the purest of pure gold this week? Hide those golden Words of Life  in the depths of your heart, where it has the power to make you radiant from the inside out.