In that moment it dawned on me. If I drove to the store and got in a wreck, or worse, they wouldn’t even know who to call. I didn’t know a soul for hundreds of miles, and my husband was out of town. I had never felt so alone. I was 23 years oldand had just moved to Philadelphia. Little did I know, I would repeat this scenario in five more cross-country moves. Everything would be new and unfamiliar, from the grocery store to the people. Move, learn a new city, a new culture, new friends, new stories, new connections. Then tear down and move again. It was exhausting. It felt like endless transition. I kept craving sameness and comfort but all I kept getting was new and unfamiliar.
Transition implies movement, the opposite of stillness, and change, the opposite of familiar. One Christmas as we made the long drive home to my parents’ house, I spotted a tree in the middle of a field. It sounds silly to say but I was filled with jealousy. I was jealous that that tree, once an acorn dropped into the earth, had fully grown in one spot. Its roots went deep down; no one was pulling it out of the ground to move it every few years.
I kept getting stuck. I knew that Hebrews 4:15–16 told me, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Then Christ gets even this. The pain I feel in all my transitions, bigor small, the range of emotions they draw out in me, and the heart-brokenness they expose. The Spirit reminded me that Jesus is more acquainted with transition than I have come close to. I don’t have to look far around my house this time of year to see God made flesh, coming in the form of a baby, showing up in my nativity scene. The ultimate transition: Emmanuel, God with us. I felt this deeper understanding put all my tiny transitions into context, pointing me to my sympathetic High Priest.
The apostle Paul encouraged Christ-followers in Philippians 2:5–8 to, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Jesus left his rightful, familiar surroundings to lower himself down. This wasn’t a small transition—omnipotence wrapped in human flesh. Think of all the limitations and changes that came with that. He went from “owning the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps. 50:10) to being born to a poor family that had no societal status in which to boast. In his obedience to gain for us what we could not earn for ourselves—peace and nearness to God—he left it all. Ripped up his roots and planted them down into the toxic mix of a decaying world. What if he had resisted that transition? Where would I be? Where would you be?
So here we all sit, sisters. Surrounded by transitions. Little and big changes nag at our lives daily. They sweep over our days, months, years—never leaving us alone. From job changes, to new zip codes, to the ever-changing shape of motherhood, to our bodies giving way to aging, or new seasons of unexpected suffering. We keep waiting for that moment when we can be that tree in the field—rooted and unmoving. Isn’t life transient for a little bit and then it calmsdown? Can’t things just hit a little stillness for a while?
Maybe we are asking the wrong thing; maybe we are craving an illusion. As we celebrate this Christmas, Jesus our High Priest who madethe ultimate transition for us, let us draw from his deep well of sympathy. He gets it. He lived it on a grand scale. Because of that, we can have hope; he has grace for us in the transitions. Grace and provision on the days when the change feels like too much. A God who transforms us into trees with deep roots no matter where we are. He brings the image from Jeremiah 17:7-8 to life in us: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Because maybe all along it’s not sameness and familiarity that we are craving. Maybe we are craving him.
It hit me in that moment when I was 23 that he was there. He had moved with me. My access to him had not changed because my zip code had. He had transitioned with me. My sympathetic, all-sufficient High Priest gave me the grace I needed in transition. The one who could send my roots down anywhere, planting me by his stream, bearing fruit. As I stare at my tiny nativity scene across the room I am reminded again, and it draws my heart into worship.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION/ APPLICATION:
What transitions in own life, big or small, have you been struggling with lately?
What impact would seeing Christ with you in the transition, giving you the grace you need to get through it, make on your feelings and perceptions?
Write a prayer to Jesus about all the things you are thinking and feeling in response to this.
Hope A. Blanton, LMSW, is wife to Ray and mother of three. She earned her master’s in clinical social work at Temple University. Currently she works as a counselor in San Antonio. She is the co-author/founder of At His Feet Studies with studies on: Psalms, Romans, 1 Samuel, Philippians, Luke: Part 1, and Luke: Part 2. They can be found at www.athisfeetonline.com and www.instagram.com/athisfeetstudies/. Hope loves good food, making people laugh, and being outside.