turn, turn, turn...

Apart from the incomparable explosion of color on just about every tree in my Southern Virginia hometown, the return of Pumpkin Spice lattes at Starbucks and different varieties of pumpkin pasta in Rome, and the Italians' stubborn determination to dress like it's autumn in New England even when it's still 70 degrees outside...few things make me feel like fall quite like "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by the Byrds. 

I vividly remember this song playing on a Kohl's "Back to School" commercial when I was a kid (gosh, probably about 15 years ago). My family was enjoying our annual beach week at my grandparents' condo in early August, just a couple of weeks before school started back. And I remember seeing the commercial and thinking, "Okay. Summer's officially over. Fall is here. And that's fine. Time for the next thing!" And with that, I traded in my goggles and sunscreen and just-for-fun books for binders and bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils (any You've Got Mail fans out there?).

But really, we're not always so quick to accept change with such submission, let alone excitement, are we? Maybe we do enjoy the seasons changing, but they shift with such predictable regularity that it doesn't make us feel anxious or out of control. We expect it. Most of us enjoy it (even though I, personally, could happily do without winter altogether). 

But, for better or for worse, the seasons of life are not so easy to anticipate or foresee. And one thing these past several years have taught me is to roll with it.

Up until about three years ago, my life was pretty "normal." I had what I would consider your average childhood...I went to school, dabbled in a variety of extracurricular activities that ranged from swim team to cheerleading to horseback riding, went to university, had part-time jobs.

But then God really rocked my world. I think since I grew closer to Him in college, my life hasn't been so normal. Before then, I tended to make decisions based on my interests...I operated more or less as the judge and jury of my own life. But since surrendering to Him, He's led me down paths I never would have chosen...taken me on adventures I never would have expected.

He called me to go. He brought me to Italy. Living overseas is never something I thought I would do. If you had told preteen me that I'd be living in another country, speaking another language on a daily basis and just generally dealing with the struggles of existing in a culture very different from my own, I would have laughed in your face. 

And since He told me to go to Rome, absolutely nothing has gone as I had planned. I didn't go when I planned to go but stayed in America almost three months longer because of visa issues. My supervisor told me he was leaving Italy for good on the day I arrived, as he was rolling my suitcase up the sidewalk to my apartment. As soon as I had completely unpacked, our landlord informed us he wanted to sell our apartment and we would have to move out in a couple of months. The art gallery that I had come to run closed soon after my old supervisor left, because he had opened it and done most of the fundraising and we no longer had the money to pay for the space we were renting. 

But you know what? Because I didn't go to Italy right away, I was able to be with my family while they and my church were going through a difficult period and I got to be a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding. And I'm sure my first supervisor would have been great, but my new supervisor and his wife became like my second family and I absolutely love our whole team. And our first apartment was nice, but I feel really at home in this one. And running an art gallery would have been cool, but in all honestly, not having it has freed us up to be more present at the university and more involved in our Italian church, and the coffee shop where we now do all our discussion groups and events instead is definitely one of my favorite and more frequented places.

And so after a somewhat rocky start characterized by God daily taking me by the shoulders and shaking me, saying, "My ways are higher than your ways. I know what I'm doing. Let go. Trust me," I finally felt at home here. Sure, there were still rough days. I still had days I felt like I couldn't communicate at all or wanted to pull my hair out over the nonsensical inefficiency of the public transportation system or the way our WiFi sometimes just switches off for several minutes and then starts working again or how our toilet sometimes spontaneously flushes and other times won't flush at all. But all in all I was happy. I had started to become comfortable.

Then Kyra died. And my world was rocked again, more violently than it's ever been before.

To be honest, I'm still waiting for God to reveal the "why," the way He's done so many times before. Maybe I'll never fully know. But as He's been teaching me consistently, really daily, for so long now....I can trust Him. 

"In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." -Job 12:10

Kyra put a painting of that verse in her daughters' room. I never thought about it much before, but it means infinitely more to me now. I'm reminded of this truth every time I walk into their room. He's still watching over their family. He's still holding me.

I've realized that much of my sorrow over losing Kyra has to do with my discomfort over this drastic change that I wasn't ready for...that none of us would have chosen. Even though I miss her terribly, I'm not sad for her...because I know where she is and she is overflowing with joy right now in a way that I can scarcely imagine. I don't think I've ever thought about the concept of being "homesick for heaven" before these past two years. But I've seen and heard and experienced so much in the past couple of years that I feel the reality of that: that this world is not our home. There is a hope of something higher. Perfection does exist. But it cannot be found here on earth.

I think so much of our dislike of change has to do with the fear of it. Fear of the unknown. 

There's really only one way to conquer that fear.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid." -Psalm 56:3-4

I certainly wouldn't want to face change or tragedy with only myself to depend on. I don't know how I could go through trails without this Anchor for my soul. 

I know Kyra's family couldn't do it without the hope that they have. It's the only reason this situation hasn't shattered Reid. 

So we have no idea what will happen, really. But we shouldn't be paralyzed by fear of the future. Things will change. That much is certain. But let's not cling so tightly to the things of this world or the way we think things "should be" that we start to put our hope and invest our happiness and find our identity in these things. What if we truly trusted God with the pen? What if we really let Him write our story and didn't fight Him over every plot twist?

[Even as I type all these things, I'm definitely still learning them. I still want to wrestle the pen back from Him and scrambled to find the Wite-Out. "Nuh uh, God. No way was ending Kyra's life a good idea. No. way."]

But I still have a hope that He's moving and working (and I know He already has been) in and through this seemingly irredeemably awful situation. Deep breaths. This is His story, not mine.

So as summer turns to fall, so another season of life is beginning as well...for all of us who knew and loved her. And for me, it will change again in two months when I go back to the U.S. and start another chapter at grad school (another thing I never thought I'd do). But He keeps reminding me not to be afraid. That He's still with me. He's still carrying me.

And of course, I couldn't start with that song and not end with these verses: 

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)