I have an early morning flight to catch tomorrow as my husband has planned a six day vacation for my 30th birthday. Over the last three years of my marriage, I have been fortunate enough to travel to five countries and explore multiple cities. I have loved every bit of it. Meeting new people, trying different cuisines, experiencing different cultures - all the while making plans for where we could travel to next. I am grateful to the Lord who has given us the time, means and health to be able to travel. However, I am also grateful for a season in my life where even stepping out of my house was a challenge, let alone travelling the world.
It was the year 2010. I had just graduated from my Masters program and was ready to take on the world. Then one day I got a call to leave Bangalore and return to my hometown Kochi. My father had met with a serious accident in the Middle East, which required my mother to leave my ailing grandmother and an unfinished house to rush to aid my dad. My parents would not have considered their 23 year old daughter the best fit to take on the responsibility of finishing a half built house and care for my bedridden grandmother, but they had no choice.
As much as I would like to say that I humbly accepted this as the Lord’s doing and purpose for me at that time, in reality I was mentally kicking and screaming for having to come back to Kerala and to have to put my ambitions, career and my social life on hold. Once I got back home, I reluctantly got into the grind of things. I missed my church, my circle of friends and the city I had called home for the last seven years. Except for a handful of family and church friends, I had none of my close friends around me. Between looking over contracts, conversations with the plumber and midnight runs to my grandmother’s bedside, I did not have the time or energy for anything else.
As weeks turned to months, I was determined to finish the task and return to Bangalore. My whole family was supportive of it. My father was recovering well and my mother returned from the Middle East, so that her daughter could go back to Bangalore to pursue her dreams. But within two weeks my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer.
As I look back on the months following my mother’s diagnosis, it is a blur of hospital visits, surgeries, sleepless nights and hours on my knees in prayer. Going back to Bangalore didn't matter, pursuing a career didn't matter, having an active social life didn't matter. We moved to an apartment with a family friend and I remember literally not stepping foot outside for months together unless it was a hospital run. I remember learning to cut my own hair because I couldn’t afford to leave my mother's side to go get one. Being the ultra-extrovert that I am, I did struggle with not being with my friends, not being able to just hang out or simply being outside the house. Months on months passed with mother’s treatment and recovery. In the mean time the house got built, we planned and celebrated my brother's wedding and my grandmother held on through all this chaos.
It has been over five years since all this unfolded. That season of my life is done with. My life today is a much different picture from those days. I have the time to (binge) watch Netflix, coffee with a friend is just phone call away and yes I go to the salon to get my hair done. This is a happier and much easier season of life. However, if the Lord gave me a choice to completely erase that period of life from my memory, I would choose not to. As hard as those days were, it was in that storm that I held on closest to Him as my anchor. It was during those dark nights that I would see His greater purposes in the light of His Word. It was in that bitter season that there was a hope for a sweeter tomorrow.
I know today that I am in that “sweeter tomorrow” and I know that as a family we will face our challenges down the lane. My prayer and my hope is that when that day comes I would have the wisdom to recollect His faithfulness from the past and trust Him to use us for His greater purpose.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: A time to weep and a time to laugh” Ecclesiastes 3: 1,4
Photo Credit: Unsplash
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This is what I needed to read for the current season.of my life. Thank you
This encouraged me ; there is indeed something beautiful in the season I'm going through. I just need to open my eyes and cherish it.
Its the season of confusion, dropping self confidence , a student waiting for her time to get exposed to the business world and fly in many colors.
This was a very well expressed testimony of God's endless love and comforting hand over our lives. When the road seems like a dead end there is a u-turn waiting with the master guiding us all the way. Thank you Susan. God bless your humble soul. Hope your parents are doing better.