January was hard. The excitement of living in a new country with new people has worn off, replaced by the realization that it will be five more months before I am back on U.S. soil, able to reunite with family members and friends I will not have seen for ten plus months. I am so beyond grateful for this opportunity, and I am incredibly in love with Ireland’s beautiful green terrain and kind-hearted people. I do not want my longing for home to be mistaken for being ungrateful. But I also do not want to deny that it is hard to be 3,910 miles from home.

As someone who hates change, the transition out of college was never going to be easy. I am the kind of person that cried when school years ended growing up, and again when they started back up the next year. I took pictures of classrooms I knew I would miss, whether it be due to great friends, great teachers, or great experiences (I am embarrassed to admit I did this all the way through Senior year of college– say hello to Matt in physics lab).

I resent the idea that such chapters must come to a close and that I will never experience something exactly like them again. Yes, I realize this is simply the nature of life… the Bible even says,

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Yet, this is difficult for me to cope with, even to this day as I am discovering. 

Though this transition was going to be difficult for me regardless of me being in Ireland, me being back home in Nashville, or me being in Chicago with some of my best friends, I can’t help but wonder if it has been magnified by being so far from the people that I am used to living, laughing, crying, and celebrating with. I am sad to have missed big moments like celebrating a best friend getting engaged, but I am also sad to be missing the small moments like girls’ nights or meeting up with friends at the ‘Backer for the Notre Dame versus Clemson game. I am watching from the sidelines, as my friends and family plan get-togethers, are exploring one another’s new homes, and are making new memories together, feeling like I am all but forgotten. Will I be able to recover these moments when I get back after being out of the picture so long? Or have I entirely missed out on the post-college, new-to-adulthood chapter they’re all experiencing?

All of that is to say that this experience is amazing, but it is not easy. It is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it is not all sunshine and rainbows. Change is challenging, and being away from home so long is more difficult than I anticipated. Since coming back from the Christmas break and reentering my new normal here, I have struggled to find solace with all these feelings. 

I know we aren’t supposed to dwell on the past, but rather to trust that God has greater and better things in store for us. Yes, this has been a difficult period for me, but through challenges God brings growth. In the Book of Isaiah, it is written:

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19).

In chemistry, there is something called a transition state in a reaction. If there is not enough energy to reach and overcome the transition state, then the reaction is not able to happen. If an enzyme is added, then it can lower the energy of the transition state, making it easier for the reaction to overcome. I need God to help me overcome this transition; He is my enzyme, so to speak, through which I can see what is in store for me here in Ireland and beyond without getting hung up on all that is changing. Through my sorrow and longing, God will produce beauty and cover me with His graces. 

This all really started to sink in this past week when we were at rehearsal for Family Liturgy Group. They were rehearsing The Cloud’s Veil, which I heard for the first time shortly after I arrived in Wexford. Since then, it has become my all time favorite liturgical song. Hearing young children with their sweet, little voices sing this soft, hopeful song gave it an entirely new meaning for me. As I sat there listening to them sing, it was almost like the words slapped me in the face. The refrain is: 

Even when the rain hides the stars,

Even though the mist swirls the hills,

Even when the dark clouds veil the sky,

You are by my side

 

Even when the sun shall fall in sleep,

Even when at dawn the sky shall weep,

Even in the night when

storms shall rise,

God is by my side

You are by my side

Even in our darkest moments, when everything around us just seems tainted by sadness, we are still not alone. God is still by our side. I have been clinging to these words, using them as a reminder that, though I may feel alone being so far from family and friends, I am never truly alone. I will not only get through these next few months, but I will find joy in them. Change is difficult, but it also is necessary and important. I know when I leave Wexford, I will long for these moments and these people. But for now, I will trust that God is working through my time here, and that He will cradle me in the palm of His hand to survive these moments when the “dark clouds veil the sky”.

 

Peace,
Kat