Sunday Sentiments: Full Circle

 

It’s true what they say: the words and pictures on any given form of social media (blogs included) are but a snapshot of the entire story.

            While I offer a pretty broad picture of our lives in the stories I share here each day, there are things I choose not to share at all, others I choose not to share in their entirety, and some that I share in all fullness. The things that are not shared are held back for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we need privacy, sometimes the stories aren’t all ours to share, and sometimes I haven’t worked my way fully through something enough to share it fairly or properly.

            Today’s story stems from that last reason.

            If you’ve been reading here for a few years, you remember when Ryan and I spent almost two years working with young adults at WillowBridge. We remain fully confident that God called us to that place for a season. We’ve never doubted it. While we were there, I shared as candidly as I could the good and the hard of that type of ministry work. But there were many, many things about that period of our lives that I couldn’t/wouldn’t share in a blog format. Sometimes I couldn’t share because I had to respect the privacy of our tenants in their stories. Sometimes I couldn’t share because you probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Truth is absolutely stranger than fiction. Sometimes I couldn’t share because the stories hurt – and talking about them made them hurt worse.

            When Ryan and I left, we felt God’s full blessing and release to close that chapter of our lives. We never would have left otherwise. But we left very wounded. I didn’t talk about it specifically because some of those stories were not mine to share. Others were the sorts of tales you probably wouldn’t believe. And others hurt so much that I couldn’t bring myself to say them aloud.

            For the last two years, we have wrestled with (more than wallowed in) the healing from that chapter of our lives. I went to counseling. Ryan and I had a lot of deep and hard conversations. We decompressed with friends. We put boundaries into place based on what we had learned about ourselves – and sometimes those boundaries have cost us dearly. This summer, I combed through all my journals and did a writing project about that season of our lives.

            Seeing all the stories condensed into 300 pages (yes, I know, that’s a lot!) helped me make sense of things that still seemed scattered and brought much healing to my soul.

            But this week, God took that a step further. WillowBridge opened almost 5 years ago, and this week, they had their annual birthday party. I have to say that I love that they still do this. It was a nerdy idea I had on WillowBridge’s first birthday. Who throws a birthday party for a building? I do. 😊 And they’re still doing it! We’ve been invited to the parties that have taken place since we left, but we weren’t quite ready to go back. This year we felt ready.

            So we went. I was so nervous walking in. What if there was no trace of us ever being there? What if the only confirmation was that it was good we were gone?

            But the moment we stepped inside, God rained down blessing after blessing for my hurting heart. Though our coworkers (who are still there!) have done beautiful updates to the Community Room, I still found things we did throughout the room. Traditions we started, decorations we left – they’re still there. A slide show played on the big screen, and pictures went back to the early days, helping me see all the great fun we had along the way.

            And conversations we had with our coworkers showed that the vision we had when we were there has, in some cases, come to fruition. We planted seeds that have grown and flourished. We made recommendations that have been implemented and are working.

            We left grateful. Grateful we went and grateful for the healing and completion that God brought to us through the experiences of the evening.