I experienced it in a series of quiet moments. Walking in the front door in the morning and realizing this would not be “my place” much longer, watching the team execute with competence and compassion but realizing that it wouldn’t continue, and doing routine tasks with an unusual enjoyment but also a sense of finality. Michelle and I had made the decision together. The work was good and valuable and productive, but we both knew that the time had come for something new. It was what I had done for the last six or seven years, my professional identity. And it was ending.
Living with a psychologist I knew the symptoms: grief, loss, a temptation to negotiate an alternate ending. This was the end of a major and fulfilling part of life. A small death.
There was the promise of the next thing, a new thing. But that wasn’t present yet, it wasn’t here. I didn’t live the new thing the way I lived the fading thing. I felt the loss. I didn’t feel the new yet. This was my decision, though. I was able to watch myself walk through it. But that did not make it easier.
As I reflected on my experience, I realized that it matched some of my previous experiences. I had felt like this at the end of my high school years, knowing that I was going onto a new and exciting but unknown thing in college. I felt it again at the end of my college years, and again shortly before I got married, with the understanding that my independent single life was ending in favor of another exciting but unknown married life.
So I started looking for this pattern in Scripture, and I found it there. Abraham had to endure the loss of his life in Ur before he came to the Promised Land. Even after arriving there, he knew that a complete fulfillment of God’s promise to him would take hundreds of years and would outlast his earthly existence.
Jacob fled death at the hands of his brother and spent decades hustling before a nighttime encounter with God changed his view of himself and gave him a new identity.
David, already anointed by Samuel as king of Israel, spent years running from Saul before he assumed his rightful throne.
And the most obvious example of all, Jesus. The creator of all started his human life as the child of a nondescript young peasant couple in the hinterlands of Galilee. He lived in humility and relative obscurity and died a shameful criminal’s death. But all of this was a prelude to his ascendancy to the right hand of the throne of God as Hebrews describes it.
The result of my searching was a surprising sense of peace even as the events of the “small death” continued. I had a context for it. I knew what it was and I knew that it would end. I realized that I could accept the loss and endure the transition, knowing that a better thing was coming. I did not know what it would look like, or when it would come.
I know that it will. I haven’t seen it yet, it’s not here. The end of the story isn’t written. The sense of death continues, but its impression on me is fading. Its yowling insistence on loss is getting fainter. There is a flimsiness to this now that I didn’t see when I first stepped onto this path.
So I wait, but I have good company – Abraham, Jacob, David, Jesus and others, both past and present. They offer companionship and encouragement. I’m not the first one to step through this, and it turned out pretty well for those that were here before. I will wait, and for now live the death before life.
Because of Him, #HopePrevails!
Scott Bengtson
Hope Prevails Book and Hope Prevails Bible Study {hope for overcoming depression}
Available now through book retailers!
Hope Prevails: Insights From a Doctor’s Personal Journey Through Depression and the new companion Hope Prevails Bible Study help the reader understand how depression comes to be, recover their joy, reclaim their peace, and re-establish their true identity, while knowing their worth, remembering their secure destiny, and being confident that nothing separates them from God’s love.
Anxious (as in excited) to see where the Lord leads you two/four on this adventure. xoxoxoxo
Susan, we are looking forward to seeing where God wants us. We just want to pursue what He has for us. Whatever it is, we know He promises that His plans for us are good! With Hope, Dr. Michelle
It is more difficult to let go of an old thing when we can’t yet see the new thing. But what a step of faith!
You’re right Lisa. This has been the hardest decision of our 30 years of marriage. Trusting His plans are good. With hope, Michelle
I believe we have His peace that He left us, we just don’t always remember it or know how to walk in it. Describing life changes as a sort of death is not something I would have thought of. But I suppose we leave a little of ourselves in places and with people and need to fill it back with Jesus.
It has certainly felt like a death, complete with full-fledged grieving. Good thing that we trust that His plans are good! With Hope, Dr. Michelle
Sometimes the major life changes, from the things you know and love, are most definitely a death, waiting for God to rebirth something new. We do leave pieces of ourselves with the people and places God takes us, even while waiting for God’s new and better.
Yes, I see the point. He raises the dead physically and spiritually, it’s why I was hurt by grief and being told it was depression. Very important to discern, but having come too close to the physical kind as well, there is a difference, the physical, you are aware of and have the facts or diagnosis while the spiritual depends on your faith, what you have taught, right or wrong, and prayers against that enemy. You don’t even know what you are missing that God is doing for you. Thank you so much, blessings.
Lovely to hear acknowledgement of emotions in a constructive & intuitive way 😀 . Great post Scott! Grief comes to us in so many forms of loss.
Praise God for wives who are also psychologists…
Jennifer
LOL Jennifer! Loved your psychologist comment!
But in all seriousness, so grateful for a healthy way to process our grief and emotions. God sure does love His kids.
Amen! 😀
Thanks Jennifer! Blessings.
Praying for you both as you transition into the new. It was so nice to read Scott’s post on your website. Change is hard even when we choose it. I too am letting go of something I love in obedience to what God wants of me. However I seem to be a little slow getting started on the new.
Maree
Maree,
We’ve let go, but we are still waiting patiently on God for His direction of what the new is to be. Waiting is hard, but our greatest desire is to be obedient…even in the wait. Blessings to you and your “new”.
Thank you for sharing your post with Grace & Truth Christian Link-Up. I am praying for your “new.”
Maree,
Grateful for those prayers as we wait on God for whatever “new” He brings! #HopePrevails
Thank you for this. It helped me with things I’ve been dealing with myself. Anticipation anxiety is one of my real struggles in life – whether it’s bad things or good things – so the addition of seeing something old die in my life at the same time makes it so much more difficult in some situations. It is good to remember that when we belong to the Lord there is life after death, even in the events and changes of our lives.
Thank the Lord for His provision of a good reminder just when we need it.
John 10:10 …I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Mary,
John 10:10 is one of my favorite verses. Sometimes we have to go through the dying process…relationships, situations, attitudes, and beliefs, etc. before we can move on to real life. But I’m so grateful he’s there with us through it all. So glad this encouraged you. Because of Him, #HopePrevails!
Mary,
Interestingly, my first book, “Hope Prevails: Insights From a Doctor’s Personal Journey Through Depression” was written to help those who struggled with depression (or those who loved those who suffered), and was based on John 10:10. Now I’m writing “Peace Prevails” to help people who struggle with worry, fear, or anxiety. I’m so grateful that God loves us as we are but won’t leave us there.