““I heard him urging me to keep my own summer song, even though life’s winter tries to throw into my spring cold wind and snow. Do not throw away your confidence, he said. Do not budge from your perch, but sing your song, summer confident, sure of my great goodness to you. You did not bring this spring, dear child; you do not have to arrange for the summer to follow. They come from my Father’s will and they will come.”
The Journey of Desire by John Eldridge
”
One of my most favorite things about living in Richmond is the James River. From where we live we get to cross it every day. We like to say it’s always a good day to cross the bridge! The best way to take it all in is to walk across it on the T. Pot Pedestrian Bridge. After a heavy storm or a lot of consistent rainfall, the beautiful James gets all murky and brown. It hides the rocks that are like mini islands and looks, as my brother-in-law said so artfully, “like one angry river.” But then, as the waters start to recede, blues and greens start to emerge. Today, while I biked across the bridge the river was fighting hard to transform back to its glorious state. Blues and greens were pushing to the surface and as the waves splashed over the rocks near the rapids-it began to look clear and clean again. As I think about 2021, I realize parts of me are fighting to re-emerge after the storm of last year. Bits of hope are stirring and I’m excited about some new things, but 2020 was an angry brown river that felt like it was trying to drown us all. My bounceback feels busted and the sheer stress of it all threatens to keep me murky. I want to run clear and clean again-trade the heavy for some wonder and glee.
I so much want life to be good again. I so much want to move from reacting to stressful events and survival mode to planning and dreaming. As a believer, I know we have to hold the future loosely- that we are always vulnerable even when a global pandemic isn’t raging, and that we are always held even in the hard. Right now my safety baseline feels adrift and while I know true north, I’m still reeling from all the setbacks. It feels like anger and tears are still close to the surface. I see it in others too. When I try and look beyond, even just into next week- it feels too hard. School for my boys next year is still unknown and I just have to be content with today’s portion. That’s all I’m asked to do. “Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”PS 27:14
Part of staying open to God’s goodness and living with hope is stepping into the new that you are being invited into. That sometimes looks like holding space for healing that you are waiting on and other times it looks like faith-filled steps into new territory. I want to be brave enough to let the dirt-filled waters of last year settle back to the bottom and I want to be brave enough to run clear. SM
.