From California to Kentucky: Faith, Calling, and Change

“Home is where one starts from.” — T.S. Eliot

It's been months since my wife and I loaded up everything "I owned" in my Sprinter Van and trailer and set our sites east to Kentucky. Her items where waiting for her in KY where she grew up to then be brought into our new setting as we began to serve our Church. The traveling from state to state was the easiest part of the change, the journey has taken months to fully arrive here.

Somewhere in Oklahoma

It's clear that what one does when they start a life together is they make changes that call upon efforts to bring a new reality. That aspect is expected and has normacly to it, yet we all handle change differently. The search for a new home has come from a place to live out the walk with God in the manner He reveals. Desiring to thrive as a Husband in a new setting serving as a Pastoral leader continues to humble me and draw deeper forms of growth.

Growth, if it really is effective, is uncomfortable. I recall this reality as I use to attend the 5am class at my HIIT gym. On my own, I wouldn't feel the burn, but with the accountability and oversight my coach, I was gasping for air to ease the burn in my legs or arms.

My encouragement to anyone who is considering making a large or small change is to remember the process or orientating through disorientation is a normal reality.

A companion I have read through all my life transitions has come from William Bridges book, "The Way of Transition". Bridges shares decades of change and experiences to help others make meaning out of the inevitable degrees of change we all experiences. The "dis" of transitions have really helped me and I want to share them with you now. Here are the primary “dis” words Bridges uses to describe the experience of transition:

1. Disengagement – This is the process of separating from old roles, identities, or routines. It’s the beginning of transition when something familiar ends.

2. Disidentification – Letting go of the old way of identifying oneself. It’s the unsettling feeling of no longer knowing who you are, now that the old context has changed.

3. Disenchantment – A kind of waking up to the fact that the world or your assumptions about it were not as you thought. Illusions fall away, and a raw reality sets in.

4. Disorientation – The confusion and lack of direction people often feel during transitions. It’s the sense of being lost or not knowing what comes next.

Grand Canyon, AZ

These “dis” experiences are part of what Bridges calls the neutral zone — the in-between phase after an ending and before a new beginning. It’s uncomfortable, but essential for genuine transformation.

As I seek to discover the new beginning may you also not cling to fear if you are in a neutral zone. May you cling ever closer to our Father in heaven who will always "...hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me." (Psalm 139:6)

Keep Looking Up,

Micah