I think it starts in childhood, right between the early teen years (or tween years) and that magical adult age of eighteen. We are thirteen going on thirty. Or sixteen going on twenty-one. Whatever the jump, we can’t wait to get there! (How well I recall those feelings!)
But there comes a time when we pass one milestone, then another, then another, and something shifts along the way.
In the middle, we get caught up in life. Perhaps we are chasing a career or a family or considering a major upheaval like a move to a new town, new state, new house, new school, new church…honestly, just changing to a new doctor or hairdresser can feel strange, right?
And we forget all about the time when we couldn’t wait to grow up. Now our kids are thirteen going on thirty, and we want to slow it down! When that toddler says, “I’ll do it myself,” a little part of a mom’s heart is caught between pride and sorrow. We want our kids to experience life just like we wanted it, but this time they’re taking us with them. If not physically, they are taking us emotionally. We’re connected in a bond that goes beyond explanation.
During those years, life kind of makes sense. Well…sometimes it does. It’s chaotic. It’s got its expectations to meet, and we do what we think is right. We teach as we were taught or we teach as we now believe, but we teach those who come behind us something. And it feels like there is a purpose, a meaning to what we’re doing.
In the frantic pace of life, from birth to about forty or fifty years old, give or take depending on our circumstances, we are distracted by many things. We are responsible. We are persistent and determined to change things. We have goals. Well…many of us have goals. There is a part of the world, in every country, where goals are chosen for us or we simply don’t have any.
And there is another thing to mention here–some people really don’t feel that life has a purpose because they feel so wounded or lost. Life hasn’t been good to them. They weren’t anxious to jump from thirteen to thirty because by thirteen they already felt thirty, were living thirty. I understand that. This post isn’t to minimize that life is hard.
The focus is to point to that place when we feel like we don’t know what to do next. And that can happen at many ages, but it’s more common as we age. Or sickness destroys any goals we might have dreamed. Like the title of my coming book, life doesn’t match our dreams. It just doesn’t.
And that’s where I find myself and a number of my friends these days. We may be in the sandwich generation of raising kids and caring for aging parents. Or perhaps we are at a point where our kids are grown and we ask, “Now what?” We no longer feel necessary. No one needs us like we were needed during those chaotic years when we couldn’t get off the treadmill.
My husband and I were discussing this the other day because with our family 3000 miles away, we don’t get those phone calls to come over and help them do this or that. Throughout our lives our parents lived five miles from us, so when we had a need, they were there in a heartbeat. But we can’t walk through a computer and land in another state. Can’t hand things to another person through FaceTime.
But beyond our situation, I look at my mom who can’t drive anymore. We help her as she used to help us. Someday our kids may be called on to do the same for us. Should she feel as though she has no purpose at 95? Should we just because we outgrew a favorite job?
Absolutely not. God didn’t create us to leave us on a shelf and tell us to just sit back and wait until we die. He also didn’t tell us to take ourselves out of the picture by ending our life here. Until He decides our time is through, we have a reason to live here. We have worth and value and purpose.
My dad lived in a nursing home for three and a half years. He had short-term memory loss. But you know, God still used him there. He prayed for his family from a bed he needed help to get out of. He smiled at us when we visited. He added joy to our lives and never lost his sense of humor, despite his infirmities.
My husband finds joy in helping others. He can’t help his own kids like he’d like to, so he helps kids at a Jr. High by volunteering and substitute teaching. He is always willing to lend a hand, and I wish I had his easy giving spirit. He gets to enjoy people face to face. That’s the best way to enjoy people, in my opinion.
My job simply moved to a career as a writer instead of a homeschooling mom. But I’ll tell you a secret…nothing beats that first career. I loved being a mom during every chaotic year, even when they wanted to be sixteen going on twenty-one. Even now when I don’t see them much.
Limbo happens when I don’t know where we’re going to live next or what God has for me tomorrow. I can make plans and dream and I still have goals that I pray about. But I can’t see around the next bend. I can’t tell you what’s coming in October or next March. I can only live life today and today I’m here. I’m in the house that is too big now, but God isn’t saying go yet.
I’m learning to be content with distance because I know this life is temporary. Limbo is temporary. And all those years when I wished the easy years away, clung to the middle years, and see the final years fleeing by, I look back and forward and pray that I will be what God wants me to be. I pray that I will look into the eyes of those I know and love and say the right things to meet their needs, to bless them where they are, wherever that may be.
Because maybe they are living in limbo too and maybe they don’t know how to deal with uncertainty. Maybe, like me, they get scared. We can bless each other by listening to those quiet admissions or maybe even listen to words that are not said. We all need God’s grace and we all need a bit of grace from each other too.
As we pass from those exciting years of discovery in childhood to those final breaths of a life lived well or not so well, may we remember that the now and the not yet middle of things will pass and something better will take its place. We need to cling to Jesus, to His Grace to see us through. It’s not always going to be easy, but life will not always be uncertain. Someday we will see.
~Selah
#livegrace #betweenthenowandthenotyet #limbo #whenlifeisntcertain
