Good News: Nobody Has Their Shit Together

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Although Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone, I found myself reflecting on this past year. It's been a year like no other, quite possibly the most challenging and worst and best year of my life so far.

I moved my life to Ireland.

Those of you who have packed up your life to move to another country, you understand the weight of what it means to start over from scratch. Moving to another country is HARD. People forget you exist. Once you're out of sight, you're out of mind. You lose friends and the safety net you didn't realize you relied so heavily on. And the hardest part of this whole picking up roots thing, is that you realize just how much you don't have your shit together.

And people notice.  They notice how this hard season has reshaped you. They don't like the way your thinking has changed, the way your theology has changed, the way you changed. Some people will try to "encourage" you with nothing but negativity and poking and prodding at all your insecurities. They will view your life from the outside, not know all the tiny, intricate, most intimate details, and tell your to flat out give up. Pack it in. Go home. But what they don't realize, my fellow people who have started over, is that nobody has their shit together.
Whether it's moving, or planning a wedding, or expecting a new baby, or quitting your job, or grieving a lost loved one, or even just trying to get through the school semester, not one person has all their ducks in a row at the same time.

So, my fellow movers, be encouraged. Know that you're not the only one, and trust me when I say that it's going to be okay.

It's tough work uprooting your entire life, but you're brave for doing it.