Fixing and Processing

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11:28‬ 

I am a fixer. It's who I am. I want to fix things. Always have been. Even in Jr. High, just ask my school counselor. I live for the thrill of seeing something broken or slightly off and making it whole. It satisfies me in the depths of my soul.

But the problem is sometimes I try to fix things, or at least help things, too soon. Just ask my gracious, merciful husband.

As most of you know just under 1 year ago, my husband officially retired from professional baseball. He didn't make it to the majors, but he did make it part of the way. And he will tell you that part of his identity was wrapped up in it. From 4 years old on he want to play baseball and he got so close to doing that as a career we could taste it. That's 20 years of emotional investment.

I, however, had not grown up with this goal. I was very supportive of his pursuit a baseball career, but I hadn't been anticipating it for years. Once we got married my ultimate hopes were to see my husband succeed and honestly to see my husband be happy.

So when the final decision to no longer pursue baseball was made, I'm sure you can guess what happened. We responded and processed things differently. Quite differently.

The "fixer" in me, coupled with my ultimate goal have seeing my husband succeed in whatever he did, immediately started looking to the future. I started to encourage and make plans for the future and assure Brandon that moving on to the next thing would be the best idea.

And those weren't terrible things to do, but the timing was terribly off. Brandon needed the chance to process this change - even to grieve this change. And he needed more time to do process than I did.

For one, I process things quickly (which usually results in a lack of grace unfortunately). But mainly, this didn't mean as much to me as it did to him. He had 20 years of hopes and dreams that he needed to process. Once that started to happen, then I was able to actually encourage and be helpful when I spoke of future plans the Lord had for him and us.

Cool insight into my life, right? Are you wondering why I randomly decided to share now?

Yes?

Good.

Well, I share this to encourage you to give your neighbors time to process everything that just happened before rushing them to the unity rally.

I could be off here, but based on conversations I have overheard today and posts I have seen today I don't think I'm way off. Take into consideration that you don't know what it's like to be in someone else's shoes and realize that because of that you don't understand where they are coming from.

And not with a tone.

Not - "Well, I just don't understand why they can't just ____________"

But - "Man, I honestly don't know where you're coming from. But I really want what's best for you and for our nation, so let me know when you might want to talk about how we can come together."

I believe unity in our country is very much need. This is the most polarizing atmosphere I have been in. But let's affirm the emotions and reality of those not like us as well.

So if you voted for someone other than Trump, process this. Grieve if you need to.

And if you voted Trump, show grace. It's at least worth a shot.

Grace to you,

Jackie