Please Hold

I like to consider myself a pro when it comes to life transitions. We moved quite a bit when I was a child including overseas and back. I have transitioned from college to med school to residency to attendinghood. 

Honestly, I like transitions. I love new starts, new adventures, even the turn into a new week or a freshness of a day speaks to me of potential, and it delights me. It is also why Lamentations 3:22-23 speaks to me- "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." 

One thing ends, another begins…unless it doesn’t. Oh, COVID-19. 

There was a plan, and the plan changed. My resignation letter states that April 3rd was my last day. The past 3 months leading up to April have been surprisingly difficult. I stopped taking new patients, transitioned my patients to other providers, said goodbye as they all had their last appointments. At the end of each day, I was emotionally raw and spent. But we knew it was necessary. We were going spend April doing some awesome cross-cultural training, then finish our fundraising and move to Kenya.

On April 1st, I rescinded my resignation to continue working during the COVID-19 pandemic. So here I am sitting in my call room at MU Women’s and Children’s hospital listening to an LOTR soundtrack, sipping tea, monitoring the “strips” of expectant mothers on the labor and delivery floor, trying to process this deferred transition.

Don’t get me wrong, I love working. I am thrilled that my presence means that someone who is high risk doesn’t need to be in harm’s way during these COVID emergency procedures. 

Yet I need to grieve the loss of the plan (Classic enneagram 1). We will still leave, but I don’t know exactly when anymore. I don’t know when I will have to say goodbye. Life just feels like one huge holding pattern, and that is challenging. 

However, I don’t need to let these ever changing plans and this unstable world consume me. The sun continues to rise and set, and the Lord remains faithful. He will never fail me, even when my plans do.