New Beginnings: Time for Reinvention

Isn’t if funny that our circumstances often serve as a kind of metaphor for our internal life? That’s exactly what happened during the reinvention of my career and when we purchased our new home last year.

I mean…look at this bedroom. It has so many beautiful elements–like that fireplace. Wow! And the size of the room is amazing.

But let’s be honest…that wallpaper has to go! I thought it looked like something my grandmother would’ve had in her home. And then my mom said…you know, I think Momma did have that wallpaper in her house!

That confirmed it! The wallpaper had to go! I need to admit that when we did our house-hunting, I wanted a bit of a project home. Ray didn’t. So we got a house with some projects for me to enjoy but not an entire fixer-upper!

Let’s take a closer look at that wallpaper, why don’t we?

It’s high-quality wallpaper. And whoever installed it did an amazing job. Everything lined up–including the outlets and switch plates. But, oh, was it ever outdated and drab.

To be honest, the wallpaper was a metaphor for my career. It was time to reinvent. And it wouldn’t be easy…or painless. Layer after layer had to be peeled away.

Reinvention would involve a stripping away of so many things. Not only a move to a new town and finding new…well, everything. But it also meant stripping away being 20 minutes from the G-baby and now being 2 hours and 1 minute from him.

Reinvention meant stripping away relationships that had grown over the 28.5 years at my previous company. And, sadly, it meant people who’d always stressed the importance of friendship–unfriending me on Facebook and not answering my emails. Good Byes aren’t always easy.

What’s a Good Bye? It’s more than a nice going-away party (which is nice). It’s also being able to acknowledge the pain of the separation–for whatever reason–but to still stay in some form of relationship. A sense of rejection and betrayal can sometimes keep people from being able to do that.

I had prayed that God would cover everything with his grace and mercy and peace–the move, my resignation, the details, everything. And He did. But that doesn’t mean it was painless. Regardless, the call of God and his direction for some time had been very clear. It was time to strip away the old career and start something new.

Living in the in-between can be difficult, having a vision for what is to come and yet relying on others to help make it happen. In our master bedroom, we hired someone to strip the wall paper and another person to texture the walls.

In my career change, I could send out resumes, apply for jobs, go for interviews; yet in the end I was still dependent on the hiring manager to make the decision. And ultimately, more dependent on God’s perfect timing (I’m so glad I didn’t get any of the other jobs that I thought I wanted so much). God’s timing is perfect–even though not my timeline.

Our bedroom makeover was messy. It smelled at times. It was disruptive. And it took time!

Isn’t that what reinvention is–messy, smelly, and disruptive at times? And it doesn’t happen overnight. We learn to wait on God–even when the vision is clear but the specifics aren’t. We learn that God is in the waiting and really does have a beautiful plan for our lives–even during the “in between” of reinvention.