Last Thursday I took another step to move toward the next chapter of my life: I closed on a townhouse. I’ve never bought a home by myself. Unlocking the door for the first time, felt like having the golden key to my new kingdom. I was moving out of the muddy river of the in-between-time and climbing up the bank to a view of my New Beginning.

Over the past years since completing my Life Coaching certification, I’ve often referred to Bill Bridges’ Map of Change from the field of transition management. He uses a map that helps clients quickly identify where they are on the continuum of change with the stages of Endings, The Gap, and New Beginnings. Since my marriage ended, I’ve been in The Gap when the old life is gone and the new life is not fully formed. This middle stage has been a time of discovery as well as a time of waiting. In one of my posts Worth the Wait: Continuing in The Gap I remembered a lesson about waiting that I learned on my Solo Journey to Michigan in 2014. I’d taken my longest road trip ever from North Carolina to see the view of Lake Michigan only to be surprised by a whiteout.

This is what I wrote in that post:

“So many times since that Michigan journey, the whiteout experience has served as a useful metaphor; being blocked from what I’d longed for, waiting and focusing on the present, then being rewarded with seeing that long-anticipated view. This week when I was struggling with waiting, I read portions of the book Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life by Henri J. M. Nouwen. I like his summary of the section, “A Time to Wait.”:

“Active waiting is being open to the promise yet to be fulfilled. Patient waiting is staying fully in the present moment. Expectant waiting is trusting that this long process will bear fruit.”  (pg. 153) 

While I’ve been living in my apartment, I’ve been watching and waiting for my new life to unfold but I’ve also been doing. I’ve worked in a part-time research nurse position and kept my grandsons two days a week. Not content to wait for the COVID lockdown to end, I ventured into that brave-and-strange-new-world of online dating. I continued with my passions of dancing and writing and began to play pickle ball. I finally took another Solo Journey at the end of my trip to Scotland and Ireland– spending a few days in the Irish coastal village of Doolin.

I’ve tried several times to find a townhouse since moving into my rental. I gave up early last year when the market was not accessible to the average homebuyer; I couldn’t handle the highs and lows of getting my hopes up then finding a cash offer won out.

But “when I least expected it,” when I’d just returned from Ireland at the end of September and was having to isolate since I tested positive for COVID, I finally opened one of the realtor’s emails. I thought the townhouse– that had the main features I wanted, must have a red flag since it had been on the market forty days; the one I’d wanted last February was purchased two days before it was available. The realtor wasn’t surprised by my reaction and assured me it was due to the change in the market since then.

Within twenty-four hours of opening that email, I saw the property, made an offer, negotiated the price once, and then came to an agreement with the seller. How can that be, I kept saying to myself. I’d prayed about finding a place that would offer a new community, a fresh start but the prayers had slowed down after the disappointment in February. Just days back from my trip, in a bit of a daze from travel and COVID fatigue–I was starting the process of buying a house.

My apartment has been the right place for me to live during the transition of divorce–of finding my way, now as a single woman. At first, I was resentful about having to move from a house to apartment; it seemed like going backwards on this path of assumptions about how we progress through life as a successful adult. But like always, God had to work to change my narrow perspective, my limited understanding of how life would unfold for me.

I will move out of my apartment and leave behind good memories of all the ways God provided for me during my time of transition.

I’m so grateful for the fruit that has been yielded through the time of waiting. I’m also grateful for how I’ve been supported by my family, friends, and readers–who are friends I haven’t met. Your prayers, words of encouragement, positive thoughts have helped me to wait–which I’ve said many times–I’m not good at!!

Today, I’m feeling the promise of a favorite Bible verse:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,

Plans to Prosper You

And Not to Harm You,

Plans to give you Hope and a Future.”

Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Today it is my prayer, that whatever stage or phase of life you’re in, that you will have Hope and see glimpses of a Future that is filled with promise.

Blessings on you,

Connie