Three Truths to Bring Hope in Transition
Biblical Wisdom for Life Changes
by Bethany Broderick
I strode into the kitchen wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and scarf. My husband glanced up and laughed. “You know it’s going to reach eighty degrees today.”
“I don’t care,” I said, turning up my nose, though I could already feel sweat beading on my neck. “It’s the first day of fall, and I’m going to dress like it.”
I zipped up my pair of ankle boots. “I might even get a pumpkin spice latte.”
He rolled his eyes but knew not to question my quirky seasonal habits. Consistent rhythms and routines comfort me, so I feel disoriented during the prolonged transition from season to season. Like when summer’s heat won’t budge despite fall’s crisp breeze. Or when a late-winter freeze halts the first blossoms of spring. Or even worse, when I have a foot in two different seasons of life.
During one particularly hard transition, I moved across the state, changed jobs (as did my husband), processed my mother’s cancer diagnosis, and became a mother myself—all within a span of a few months. I didn’t have a morning routine (or know which packing box held my favorite coffee mug). I didn’t know how to measure my daily “success” as a work-from-home mom. I struggled with how to care for my mother when she had always selflessly cared for me. I doubted the goodness of God and struggled to understand how he could allow all these changes to happen all at once.
Truth for Transitions
After months of anxiety and depression in this shifting season, a new mentor pointed me back to the firmness of God’s Word. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Seasons will always change. Leaves turn to amber and fall to the ground. Blankets of snow melt away to green blades of grass. Summer indiscriminately fills the skies with blazing heat and strong thunderstorms. Nothing about nature or our lives remains the same, yet “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). It is this “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19) that keeps me grounded during seasons of change. Instead of finding hope in a set schedule, predictable routines, or fixed circumstances, I can set my hope on the truths of God’s Word.
First, I remember God is sovereign over every season. Only God “changes times and seasons” (Daniel 2:21)—both in nature and in life. He sends summer’s first thunderstorm and opens spring’s first blossom. He ordains seasons of rest and seasons of hardship, seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity. My good and sovereign God has established when (and if) the “big break” will come in my career and when my children will finally sleep through the night. He holds it all together so I can hold my life loosely.
My hope is found in the truth of God’s Word—not in a set schedule, predictable routines, or fixed circumstances.
Second, I remember God doesn’t change even as the seasons do. Another newborn baby and job transition leave me tired and uncertain, yet I trust that the God who sustained me in past seasons of change will hold me through this one. Even when everything around me changes, God will fulfill his promises to me. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” (Lamentations 3:21–22). By meditating on God’s past faithfulness, I can walk in hope during this current transition.
Finally, I remember God is at work as I find new rhythms during life transitions. Rather than expecting old patterns to fit this new stage of life, I abide in the Holy Spirit and let him transform me during this season of change. I don’t boast in my ability to control what I will do today or tomorrow but entrust my plans to God by saying, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). I allow God to sanctify me and my routines in this new season.
God holds it all together so I can hold my life loosely.
Seasonal Living
I know my season of life will change again one day. I can stubbornly fight the transition and make life even more difficult—just as I sometimes snub weather forecasts to wear attire for the season I want and not the season at hand. Yet this choice always leaves me exhausted and uncomfortable (like wearing cashmere in eighty-degree weather).
Or I can choose to believe this change is ordained by God, is transient, and is an opportunity for me to grow. I can accept that “it is not for [me] to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). I can live with confidence that the God who began a good work in me will sustain me through each transition until his work in my life is completed (see Philippians 1:6).
A recovering perfectionist, Bethany Broderick writes about looking for God’s grace in everyday life. @bethanygbroderick
Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version of the Bible.