Monday, June 4, 2012

Times, They Are A-Changin'

Husband turned to me on the way home from Mass on Sunday evening and said “It feels like everything’s changing. I don’t like it.” He’s right, things are changing. I can’t tell if it’s a whole new season for us or just a smaller shift.

At Mass, we found out that our favorite priest, Father R, has been assigned to a new parish, one at the far edge of the diocese. He was a big part of the reason that we stayed at our parish when we moved away. He is young but really smart and it was great watching him grow as a priest over these last three years. I’d never had a real friendship with a priest before, and Father R was just really great with both me and Husband. He’s the priest we called when we needed to hash out some issues in our marriage. We’re both going to miss him a lot! Also, they’re not replacing him. We’re going to be down a priest. This is distressing in a whole raft of ways, but not in the least because Father R does SO MUCH. It was, in fact, hard to find something that was going on at the parish that he wasn’t involved in. You know how the new, young priests work their tails off? This has been Father R, and then some.

At my office, several of my coworkers will be leaving this summer. One I have worked with for 4 and a half years, and she and I have shared a really close friendship. I’m hoping that it’s going to stand this test of the new season in her life (she’s about to start grad school) but I fear that it may not. This last year we’ve been further apart, because, well, we live further apart. These new circumstances will only make things more difficult on that front.

At Husband’s office, two of his colleagues and close friends have lost their jobs of late. Husband is searching furiously for a new job of his own. I know that he misses working with those guys, but even more, he’s mourning the loss of the dream that they all shared that was This Job. It was a big dream for Husband, and he’s crushed to be letting it go.

Then, of course, there are all the babies everyone has cooking. They are joyful changes, to be sure, but they are still changes. And they are reminders of changes that Husband and I aren’t getting to experience. With all this ground shifting under our feet, it seems the changes we want still elude us.

Dear Lord, you are the steady ground beneath my feet. This is undoubtedly a good time to remember that You are the only one we can cling to and know that we will be held in strong, loving arms no matter how the earth shakes.

-January

6 comments:

  1. Sometimes change can be so hard...praying for you and your dh throughout this time of changes.

    Ps-love that prayer at the beginning...so very beautiful.

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  2. Thank you for sharing this great post. I can relate to what you are saying. When I was waiting to adopt my little girl it seemed like the change that I wanted was the slowest one to come. I was so happy when that change did come. I found a lot of helpful adoption advice at http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-cpa. I hope this is helpful!

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  3. Noooooo! So sad to hear Father R is leaving. He presided at our wedding and gave us lots of good counsel while we were pregnant with L.

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  4. I hate change. I like routine & comfort ... and change just throws me off my game. I'm so sad that you're losing Fr. R! It seems the best priests don't ever stay long enough. And for him to not be replaced ... that's going to be tough. We have only one priest at the parish just down the road from us and I'm sure he's over-worked to death (the nun who "helps" is retiring in June). We enjoy going more to another parish in town with a young priest who is the same as your Fr. R. I wish there were more like them!

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  5. I got a "sneak peak" at the priests being reassigned in our diocese b/c of my job and I'm not gonna lie, I did a quick "ctrl-f" of my priest's name to make sure he wasn't on it!

    Change is hard, but I love your prayer at the end!

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