It had been one year, 2 months, and 8 days since I last counseled clients. I looked at our year of adventure as a huge sacrifice to my career and a hindrance to my personal fulfillment (I can be such a brat). You see, counseling means a lot to me. I have several passions, but counseling is the most prominent. There’s nothing more exciting than working with a client and seeing growth with each session. I get to witness life changes as I sit across from a man, a woman, a couple, a family, or a child. I get to see their burdens lift and their problems resolved (most of the time). Not because I’m good at what I do, but because there is something else at work in their lives, and it moves and changes them. It’s glorious to see. That is why taking a year off was so difficult for me.
This time a year ago, Josh and I had just moved to Texas and were figuring out what life in an RV in another state was all about. Little did I know that that year was exactly what I needed. I needed to have that time alone with my husband uninterrupted by our busy schedules and hectic obligations. I needed to move away from the familiar and get scared and insecure in order to realize where my foundation really is. I needed to have fun, explore, and experience everything that I did. From people to nature to food to ideas- I needed all of it to teach me that there is so much more to life than my little known world.
In a way, I was experiencing a new kind of therapy. It was difficult sometimes and freeing other times. Looking back, if I had started working as a counselor right after graduation, I wouldn’t have been as effective. I didn’t know then the things I know now. I couldn’t have empathized as well or understood problems the way I do now. I am a much better counselor/therapist/shrink (what have you) because I understand myself and this life better.
I say all this, because I have encountered many people lately who seem to struggle with timing the way that I do. Whether they are looking for a relationship or a job, children or a house, timing is frustrating. It seems like we are being held back (maybe even punished) when all we want to do is move forward. Friends, let me encourage you: time is on your side! Actually, the Lord is, but he is in control of time, soooo there you have it. I digress. You will not be as complete or ready if you gain the things you are desiring now to happen when you want them to happen. Does this make sense? There is a purpose- a very specific and glorious purpose- why you are not moving forward in your eyes. Don’t you want to feel blessed to the fullest? Of course! And sometimes that means that in order to receive the very best for our lives, we have to wait. And wait. And wait.
So, while waiting is annoying or painful or even miserable, it is essential. Maybe you won’t see the benefit of it immediately or even ever, but it’s there. As a dear professor of mine used to say: Trust the process.
