Transitions and Stress

Here I am, posting as infrequently as ever. But as always I'm asking that you not give up on me. There is a reason for the infrequency.

Our family has been in transition for over two years now. Having started a new work in January, I am currently re-reading Roy Oswald's New Beginnings: A Pastorate Start Up Workbook published by the Alban Institute (while I believe this book may be out of print, there are others like it if you do a search of Oswald's name on Amazon). The first few chapters offer advice for coping with transitions and the next several deal with starting well in a new ministry. 

In regard to transitions, Oswald says that we are only able to tolerate so much change in our lives. If too little is familiar or predictable we risk getting sick, or even dying. The book includes a stress inventory listing several events which are said to produce individual stress reactions. The reader is assigned a score for every event listed that has occurred in one's life over the past twelve months. Here is a very small sampling from the list:

• personal injury
• forced out of last church (I assume this means fired)
• job change
• change in financial state
• change in living conditions
• change in residence
• change in schools

Again, this is just a small sampling of the list and each of those items listed above is something that has affected our family over the last twelve months. So have many other things on the list. Oswald says that a score of over 200 means you might be dangerously close to your stress threshold level. My score was 560. 

If by the end of 2009, we manage to sell our house and buy a new one, then all of the following will have happened to us over a two-year time period.

• I was in chiropractic care for several months due to a rear-ending auto accident. Gretchen was just released from therapy after an ice skating accident in December.
• Over the last two years I have had four different jobs, in two fields, in four cities.
• By the end of this year we will probably have moved four times in two years and lived in three cities.

But here is the good part. I'm not under a great deal of stress right now (and I'm not in denial). The leadership of the church to where I'm transitioning has been very patient as we gradually move. It's a lot easier when your new job is within driving distance of your home and within the same state. 

The stress of moving over a thousand miles to another state and the adverse effect this can have on marriage and health is something only those who have done it can possibly imagine. And I'm not talking about a move to or from college which is in a whole different category. I'm talking about an established life that is uprooted and relocated. 

But the whole experience has just confirmed to me how uncertain life is and that nothing can be taken for granted. It has forced me to finally get to a place where I can trust God like I never have before. Does this mean I'm glad all this stuff happened or that I somehow see it as God's plan? Absolutely not! Much of what we've experienced should never have happened. Nor should Joseph have been sold into slavery by his brothers, but it all worked out for good as our situation has and will continue to do so.

In my next post I'll mention some coping strategies that have proved helpful to those undergoing life transitions. I would have done better to apply these strategies more in previous transitions, but this time I am and they are working for me.

Comments

[Vicki]

Please list them quickly! I could really use some new ideas on coping strategies.

[Wade Tannehill]

Coming right up! Maybe Monday at the latest.

[ben overby]

Wow, do I ever relate to that. I wasn't forced out of the last church I worked with, I just feel like I was pushed out by Jesus. I didn't just experience job change, I've stepped into a new career (medical practice management), which I new zero about this time last year. We had to move from NY and give up on New Genesis because I couldn't find a well-paying job. We moved back to Georgia on our credit card. We went from living in our own house to an apartment; with our two grown boys sharing the same room. And, we bought a house two weeks ago and will pick up the keys this evening. I'll paint a few rooms tomorrow, and we'll move next week. Since December 05 we'll have moved three times, four jobs, not counting my son's jobs, over thousands of miles, while helping our boys cope with incredible changes.

I have never been more at peace, and feel as though I'm under zero stress. And I think my wife and kids (one now in college, another headed for college next year) would say the same about themselves. All praise to God.

[Wade Tannehill]

Ben,

Glad things have worked out for you and congratulations on the new house. Have fun painting. Glad you're blogging again.

I remember your post about leaving your job in New York after so short a time following the ending of your last job and the major move. I remember thinking, "I hope that doesn't happen to me," but feeling in the back of my mind that it very well may. And it did.

Glad your kids have adjusted so well. People say kids are resilient, which is true, but all of God's people can be resilient once they've been in situations where they are forced to trust him like never before.

Compared to what I've endured, the transition I'm going through now is a piece of cake.

[John Dobbs]

I don't really know what's happened in your transitions Wade, but I hope that things are settling down. We can tell a tale about transitions and that stress scale too. God bless.

[Wade Tannehill]

John,

I'm sure you can. And what I've been through is really small potatoes compared to your last several years. Things are fortunately settling down for us.

Wish I could have joined all you guys at Tulsa, but I am busy with getting a house ready to sell and doing the new job I began in January. Maybe next year. I hope there is a second annual bloggers luncheon.

[Wade Tannehill]

oops! Did I say I'd do the follow up to this post no later than Monday? Life has got in the way again. I'll keep trying.

[Matthew]

Hang in there man. We went to a new job and state too, and to a new school. You are in my prayers.

www.matthewmorine.com

[Wade Tannehill]

Matthew,

Thanks for the comment and for the prayers. May God bless your new work.