Transition Always Leads to Change

Transition is the stage of labor right before you begin pushing the baby towards delivery.
This is the last part of active labor – when your cervix dilates from 8 to a full 10 centimeters – it is called the transition period because it marks the shift to the second stage of labor.
This is the most intense part of labor. Contractions are usually very strong, coming every two and a half to three minutes or so and lasting a minute or more, and you may start shaking and shivering.
By the time your cervix is fully dilated and transition is over, your baby has usually descended somewhat into your pelvis.
Those of us who've experienced this passage of time know the difficulty of that process.  Transition is hard!  The only positive thing about it is that you know you are close to the end.  Pushing that baby out is not far away, but transition must come first.

What does all of this have to do with anything???

Transition is not only labor term, but it also describes what we go through in life right before God shows us His new plans for your life.    Webster's Dictionary defines transition as: The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.   Wow!  That is an awesome definition!

When we go through a period of transition in our spiritual life, it seems as though everything gets harder and more difficult to understand.  It seems like the darkest hour before the dawn.   I always feel like I'm getting squeezed through a hole that is an impossibility, humanly speaking, for me to get through.   During transition you can't see the big picture, you can't understand the process.  You just know that it hurts.  You are shaking and quivering because you don't have all the answers yet and time is closing in.  This is when most people cry out, "Where are you God?"

Back to transition in labor....The best labor I ever had was with my last child, Destiny.   It wasn't til her labor did I understand what to do during this process.  That's right, I did it wrong 4 times before getting it right.   I changed everything I did for labor number 5.  I learned to have lazor like focus.  I learned to keep the pain where it was going to work the most.  I learned to listen to my birthing coach.  I obeyed her commands and I went to "work" delievering my baby.   During births one through four, I did just the opposite.  I let the pain overcome my whole body.  I focused on the pain and not the process.  I yelled and screamed.   I told the nurses that I was going to die!!   I allowed the transition period to beat me physically, emotionally and mentally.  

Transition in labor is not much different from transition in life.   When we are in the process of changing from one state or condition to another, it is difficult.  Change is difficult.  It's how we handle the change that makes all the difference.   I believe that God's plans for us are good, not to harm us but to prosper us, benefit us.   Just like birthing a baby.  Transition is necessary.  If you do it right, it is purposeful and beneficial.   If you only look at the temporary pain and focus on that, then you lose sight of the bigger blessing that you are just about to hold in your arms.

Scott and I have been going through transition for two weeks.   We felt it coming on.  We knew things were about to shift.  It's as though there's a little calm before the storm, then it hits.  Change begins to take place.   Circumstances begin shift.  You feel like Elijah at the brook where he was being fed by ravens and then all of sudden the brook dries up.  When the brook dries up you need to seek God about what's going on and what you're suppose to do.  You don't seem to hear anything at first, but we've learned from our past mistakes of  letting change overtake us, worry us and  make us sick.  So we seek God purposefully, we worship, we call upon our interceding friends to pray and we listen for God's way to open up before us.  It takes time.  It's a labor so to speak.   You need to be patient during this process.   This is where the scripture verse....Let patience have it's perfect work, and another verse that says" let patience possess your souls" means more than it has ever meant.  Wow!  Patience is really important.    Letting patience have it's perfect work, means settling your mind, quieting yourself and all the voices around you and zeroing in on what God is saying.   Waiting on the Lord is the same thing.  It's an active thing.  The state of  being patient and waiting are verbs, action words.  Practicing patience actually takes work and effort.  Waiting on the Lord means actively listening to His direction.    
But Praise God when that direction comes, when the waiting is over...it is clear, it is purposeful and you have the resolve to go the distance.   I'll talk more about the birthing process itself in the next blog.   Be of good cheer!  The birthing process does come to an end and then there is joy!!!