Skip to main content

Double Dutch, Flexibility, and Ecclesiastes

 


Let me begin by saying I don't know how to Double Dutch. In theory it seems like you just need to catch the rhythm. I use a Double Dutch analogy frequently when I am talking about catching on to something, but I have never actually tried myself. Or maybe I tried, failed, and intentionally forgot? Regardless it seems like a lot of life is trying to catch the rhythm, jump in, and make the best of a situation. As a planner, I would prefer a schedule for entrance, number of jumps, and exit. Sure at a competition it may be that regulated- but on the street? Real life? Flexibility is the name of the game. 

A former boss once said, you seem extremely flexible. She was right in that I have a lot of skill sets that I can wield well. A close friend found the comment hilarious because he knew that my ability to do so many things did not equate to an easygoing nature about plans switching up. As I think back over the last two years, life has been nothing but the switch up! The direction seems sure, clear, set, and then switch up! Veer to the left, veer to the right! And there I am holding my now irrelevant plans as the rhythm of life carries on. 

In so many facets of life I have been able to jump back in, seemingly not missing a beat. Yet my non limber mindset has struggled with not being as flexible as all the life changes have required. Where is my plan that works down to the "t"? Where is my year, month, week, day, ok hour that goes as planned?

This morning as I realized that this switch up rhythm is the new pattern of my life, I found comfort in the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3. 

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

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


The time has come for me to become a discerner of the season, the time, more than a planner of every moment. Seasons change, and I must be willing to change with them too.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Still Married, Over 2 Years Later!

  It sounds like what’s the big whoop? I’m sure most would hope that would be true 2, 10, 20 years! But we separated over 2 years ago! I filed for divorce over a year ago. Yet, here we are, still! “Final” hearing over 4 months ago.   Marriage is definitely meant to be binding, and I am not a believer of I just married the wrong person. But what about when the person doesn’t want to be married to you? What about when the person engages in abusive behaviors towards you?  Less than 5 months into my marriage I had to face dilemmas no newlywed should. It was my life that spun into a nightmare. It was my life that had looked so promising and then became so ugly. I had to wrestle with thoughts of immediate divorce vs trying to work it out/ believe God/ anything but divorce. I chose the God will fix it path. And I believed He would.  Then as time went on I changed to the God can fix it camp. But as months passed, and conversations looped, and counseling continued to be refus...
Post a Comment
Tell Me More»

Happily Ever After?

 I was speaking with a friend the other night, and she commented that she didn’t remember the last time I was so happy. The reason she couldn’t remember was because any sort of happiness I had experienced previously had been so fleeting. She and I had met at the end of 2020. My whole life had gone through restructuring, so 2021 seemed promising.  Purposeful but painful is what 2021 turned out to be. Rather than height to height, 2021 traversed heights to valleys. What was hopeful collapsed. What was stable shifted to shaky. And what was foreign and unknown became my safety zone. I went from the familiar streets of DC to the mountains of North Carolina. I went from being one of many almost everywhere I went, to one of the only African Americans in the area. It was hard. Injustice was real, and the marriage I had been hoping for had imploded. 2022 brought new everything. New job. New place to live. New title: single mom. Constant change in which I found it hard to find more than...
Post a Comment
Tell Me More»