twenty five years and two months

Two months ago I walked into a courthouse, and walked out twenty pounds lighter. The name change wasn’t the actual change, merely the end cap. Changing the label on a jar that changed contents a while ago, all be it a very heavy label. Last night I stumbled onto a journal from my first six months in WA... six years ago. There are few people in my life now who know the depth of change my life has held in that time, especially the last couple years of it. I am finally accepting that there is simply no way to explain. But the small eight entry journal buried and long forgotten reminded me of the reality of that depth.

One of my favorite quotes is by Jonathan Swift: May you live all the days of your life. I love it because it reminds me that its not a given. You can keep breathing, keep paying rent, all with out ever being whole. I know too many people who live their whole lives as functioning wounded. Healing is not necessary for life. I read back through that journal thinking, there was never a guarantee that my life would change. As much as I wanted it to, as much as I was constantly striving, there was no fine print that assured it would. There was only God.

I cried through the whole thing. Not the beautiful single tear down the cheek kind, but the blubbering - snot flowing -trouble reading the next line - kind.  A mixture of regrets, and an overwhelming awe of all that God has and is doing. A friend called it a cathartic emotional roller coaster. Years ago an amazing lady said that is was like I was buried in plaster, dulled and hidden. It isn’t until now, being wholly free of that cage, that I can see the chipping away that had begun long before I sensed fresh air. 

Its been two months since I legally became Isabela, two months since the official end of the season that consumed twenty five years of my life. And I still don’t know, how do you come to grips with finding what you sought your whole life? I keep thinking about the Proverbs 13:12: ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life’. The first half of that verse was the mantra for most of my life. I knew the truth in it, I lived with that sickness daily. For the first time I understand the later half. I have seen that tree, sat under its branches with a fresh breeze blowing through.

I am on the verge of becoming one of those obnoxiously happy people. The kind I spent most of my life annoyed at, or was it jealous of? But not because life is perfect or simple or close to easy right now. But because aside from the slightly alarming amount of good in my life right now, I have seen first hand the fierce love of God.

Soli Deo Gloria