Weep no more, my lady! It’s now been one month since the second moving truck (the first one broke down and they had to reload a new one—don’t even get me started on the phrase If it can go wrong, it will) pulled into the long white driveway of my rental house in Campbellsville. After camping out in the house on an air mattress with a moving box for a nightstand, I was delighted to see familiar belongings making their way on extremely strong shoulders into this new location. There is something soothing in viewing familiar items, even if they aren’t quite designed to fit perfectly into the new space. It’s a process to settle in. And part of processing change is to grieve and weep.

Weep no more, my lady! If God is indeed collecting my tears in a bottle, the past three years have provided Him with an abundance to add to His collection. It feels as if He could fill an entire ocean, and the reality is that I am in a Season of Life that will likely find many more tear-filled days ahead. After all, we are Only Human and God did not design us to live in these bodies forever. We will have to say goodbye, or at least Next Time, to those we love.

Perhaps it’s an odd place to find solace in the aches of being human, but the insight of Mature Jenny from the series Call the Midwife, brings me comfort. I’ve often paused the show so I could jot down her words: “The wise will always learn. The generous will always find they have more to give. Thus, we cross the threshold into freedom, into progress, into embracing all that’s new. The world shifts around us and we shape ourselves to fit. Imperfect and beautiful…wounded and [flourishing]…delicate, invincible, forever moving on. Time is not the tide. It moves in only one direction. Go forth with courage and in hope. Change is not loss. We must run with it, dance with it…give it all we have.”

So, I’m going to choose to go forward with courage and in hope. Just as the nuns, midwives, and people of East London moved forward in hope after World War II, just as King David expressed his “exuberant thanks for the transformation from mourning to joyful dancing” in Psalm 30, I will move forward, hoping to “weep no more” at the idea of relocating and discover a New Kentucky Home.

There was a glimmer of hope on the horizon this week on the return drive from the Louisville airport. Seeing billboards and signs that refer to the state song My Old Kentucky Home, a thought began to flitter about in my mind. Before leaving the airport, being the dutiful daughter that I am, I sent a text reading: Landed. Luggage. Leaving. (Like that wordy communication? And if you don’t have anyone who cares about whether you arrive where you are supposed to be, you can’t have my mom!). But it was the normal text that I sent next that triggered an emotion: Home.

On Sunday, I was weeping no more at this unplanned life change. I am moving into a place of acceptance and towards hope for how the Lord might use me in this Next Season of life. I am not able to relate to all the state song lyrics of My Old Kentucky Home, but I can embrace the line Weep no more, my lady! as I seek to find my anavah, my God-Given Space in this new state. I may not be dancing yet, but the mourning is lessening, and God is with me, of that I am certain in this New Kentucky Home.

References:

Foster, S. C. (Composer). (1853). My old Kentucky home. Firth, Pond, & Co.

Harris, P. & Thomas, H. (Executive Producers). (2012-2024). Call the midwife. [TV series]. Neal Street Productions.