“I didn’t sign up for this.”
I’ve said that a lot this last year…a season that I was hurled into without my choosing and without much warning. A season that turned my life upside down…and I find myself saying to God…”Help! I really didn’t sign up for this life I’m living now.”
How many of us feel like that in the midst of moving back to our passport country…
“I didn’t sign up for this.”
…for having to find another job to pay the bills.
…for the wrestling with depression or anxiety.
…for living through a season of serious illness in our family.
…for the loss of our faith in the midst of working in ministry.
…for having to move back from a place we loved.
…for having to start life all over again.
…for picking up the pieces after our marriage fell apart on the field.
…for our children dealing with trauma after seeing too much.
…for our loneliness…when we feel like we have lost our friends from the field and we are returning to find our old friends have moved on and we must start again.
…for living with the after math of what feels like errors in judgement on the part of teammates or sending organizations.
Whatever it looks like for you…there many reasons in life when we can find ourselves in a season where we feel like…
“I didn’t sign up for this.”
There are so many emotions that accompany the “I didn’t sign up for this” seasons.
- Anger: God what were you thinking? Surely there’s someone I can blame this mess on…
- Resentment: why me, why this, why not someone else, why, why, why…
- Overwhelming: life feels suffocating…
- Hurt: It’s just hard, and hurts most days.
- Grief: I miss the old life, I so want to go back to that sweet innocence of before…
- Guilt: I should be handling this better, I shouldn’t be feeling these emotions, I should be thankful for every season, I should be stronger….
- Self-Pity: Surely I have it harder than other people…someone should feel sorry for me…or at least it seems like that would make it easier.
- Fear: What if this doesn’t work out, what if I’m living in this place forever?
- Anxiety: How in the world can I carry on? Can I handle this? I really don’t know what I’m doing…
And often the emotion that feels lacking is hope. I heard today someone say “when you are living in survival you can’t dream.”
That’s often the case in these seasons when we feel like life isn’t what we signed up for. We are living in triage mode. We are holding on and taking the next step…but if we are really honest we are only just surviving. We feel like each day is a step into the adventure of the unknown and each moment takes more emotional energy than we thought we were capable of. And then we wake up again the next day…and attempt to do it all over again.
We pray that someday it will get easier. We hope that this season won’t last forever. We try to talk ourselves into the idea that we can do anything for a while…
But at the end of the day we find ourselves having to reconcile ourselves to a new reality. A new plan. A new way forward. A new chapter in our story…one that we would not have written if we were the author.
What do we do in the seasons when we feel our insides screaming “I didn’t sign up for this?”
Recently, I’ve been giving some serious thought to what do you do when you find yourself in this season. How do you find freedom from the emotions that seem so strong? How do you embrace the new normal as a good part of your story?
Because some days it’s easier than others. Some days I’m optimistic. Some days I’m excited to be stretched and learn new things. Some days I’m even able to dream a little bit. And other days the fear is crippling. The grief is overpowering, and the ability of trust that God has a plan seems illusive.
And so I keep wrestling with this phrase…”I didn’t sign up for this”. And I ask myself: what is it I’m really wrestling with?
Am I wrestling with who I believe God to be? Am I asking whether God is good to give me this?
Am I wrestling with the loss of a dream? Of feeling like the life I thought I wanted is slipping away…and I have to make do with this new one?
Am I wrestling with feeling trapped?
Am I wrestling with the pain? The pain of loss, grief, missing people. The grief of loosing my innocence?
Am I wrestling with the loneliness of this season?
Am I wrestling with the reason why? Why did this have to be this way?
Am I wrestling with fear?
Yes, to all of these. I am wrestling. A lot. Sometimes more acutely than others.
And I wonder how can I get past this season? How can I find reprieve? Surely I was not made for this living in limbo. Surely I was not meant to have to wrestle so much.
OR JUST MAYBE I AM.
Maybe wrestling is one of the beautiful parts of the story.
Because in the wrestling…
Somehow our emotions are more alive.
Somehow we are longing a little more deeply for the Father.
Somehow the things that are most important in life seem to be highlighted.
Somehow we are forced to ask the hard questions.
Somehow we are forced to go forward. When there is no going back…we must stretch ourselves.
Today…I’ve been thinking about how wrestlers are in good company. Even Jesus in the midst of making arguably the most loving decision on all time…was saying…”I didn’t sign up for this.”
When we find ourselves in the seasons where we are saying “I didn’t sign up for this,” maybe these are the seasons where we can love others more deeply, we can cling to Jesus more tenaciously, we can wrestle with deep questions more seriously, we will be reminded of our humanity…and therefore long for the Father’s divinity even more.
And so I’m learning to live in this awkward place of trying to trust that His plan is good…and the reality that I’m still finding my emotions saying “I didn’t sign up for this”
Because intellectually I’d like to say that His Plan is Perfect and He knows what He’s doing, but in my humanity…most days I’m not feeling it.
I wish I could share here that I’ve figured it out.
But until I do…I think I will just keep choosing to live through this season and all of its accompanying emotions.
Authors Note: This post has sat in my drafts folder for a year or so…because I didn’t know how to end the article. What I realize now is that sometimes in seasons of winter we don’t know the ending and that is OK. So…I’m choosing to publish this without a great conclusion…but you can click here to read my article about seasons and maybe hear some of the end of the story.
