In last week's blog, I wrote a little bit about how my family is in an in-between season, and it's a struggle at times. We have a few things ending and no clear direction on where we are heading. I am not fantastic at leaping into the great unknown and seeing where the wind takes me, so it is a bit of an uncomfortable place to be. This is my daughter's last official week in high school. I have been concentrating so hard on getting through year 12 part of the equation that I wasn't prepared to feel sad about the end of the chapter.

It's funny how sometimes we can be so focused on the getting through it, that we don't deal with the emotions under the surface. For me, the ending of this era has triggered (I really hate that word, but it fits so we'll go with it) some deep emotions about being unable to have more children.

My husband and I have a child each and always planned to have at least one together. For us, that never happened. I thought that I had dealt with it, but the ending of my daughter's school era and the realisation that this is the end of my school era too has been so painful. I expected to have other children still in school.

Often our expectations and the realities of life don't line up, and that is where the pain lies.

I find myself in this strange season, asking God lots of questions. I think we are scared sometimes to lay our souls bare before God. To ask him why things happen the way they do, or why things don't happen the way we think they should. To tell him how we feel about that. He sees our struggle anyway, so we might as well be real with him about it.

Just because I am asking a lot of questions doesn't mean I am getting a lot of answers at the moment. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. We can't always know the why of everything. Talking, praying, and journalling is helping me work through it.

I know for me counseling has helped in the past and is something I would consider again. Eventually, emotions we don't address reappear. They can be triggered by an event that is not related, as I am discovering. Undealt with emotions can show up in unhealthy behaviors, relationships, and addictions.

God's design for us is to live emotionally healthy lives. The only way to do this is to deal with emotions rather than push them away. We can be 100% honest with God. It's only then he can work in us and begin to heal the pain.