In the weeks
before closing on the sale of our house we packed truck-loads
full of everything deemed unnecessary and hauled them off to the basements of
two close friends. We didn’t know where
we would be living or for how long, so the climbing wall went and the wood
working tools, along with bin after bin of off-sized boys’ clothing.
Maybe it was
optimism that led me to send along a bag stuffed to overflowing with every hat, mitten and scarf we own.
Maybe it was denial. I was sure we’d be settled and our possessions re-gathered before snow started to fly.
But this
week, the temperatures turned. Flurries floated by, hurried bits of white, rushed along by the wind, eliciting gasps of excitment from children far and wide.
The
long-waning fall let go its dwindling grip on the world and I waited with
growing dread for the morning my son would ask for gloves before heading out
the door to school.
I drove
through the early darkness one evening, heading out of town to my friend’s house. Rooting through their basement I dug out the sought-after bag along with a pair of shoes, a binder
and a sermon I’d been hunting.
It feels, to
me, like another letting go, another surrender.
Yes, we’ll
be here for winter.
Yes, we’re
going to have to figure out a place to hang six coats or more.
Yes, we’ll
need to vacate a corner for a Christmas tree, here in this place where we never
planned to be.
Reading a
children’s bible with my son one morning, a short sentence giving instructions to Abraham and Sarah shimmered before me
the way a poem does, giving words to felt experience,
“But now you
must leave your house and live in a tent, ready to move on whenever I tell you
to.”
I’m not
blind to the hubris of comparing ourselves to Abraham and Sarah, but isn’t this
in a sense, what scripture asks us to do; to enter into our own adventure, our
own “wild dancing” with our untamed God, taking solace and courage in these
ancients who are at once both our guides and companions?
Reading
Barbara Brown Taylor’s chapter on the Practice of Getting Lost in An Altar in the World, her words stand
as a strange and much needed affirmation, an invitation to embrace, yet again,
the gifts of being lost and in-between,
I have decided to stop fighting the prospect
of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead . . . God does
some of God’s best work with people who are truly, seriously lost. Take Abraham and Sarah, for instance, the
first parents of the Hebrew people. The
bible gives no reason for God’s choice of Abraham and Sarah except their
willingness to get lost. By saying yes –
by consenting to get lost – they selected a family gene that would become
dominant in years to come.
Abraham said “yes” to God.
‘Yes,’ we’re saying, ‘yes.’
Yes to wandering and waiting,
yes to journey over destination,
and yes to every moment in-between.
This post is linked with Playdates with God.
So. Here you are. Opening the hand again, Kelly. Getting lost as a spiritual practice. Now there's a concept for you. Still praying. Trusting He'll work it all together. Asking that it will be soon. Hugs to you.
Thanks Laura. Yes, those hands that clench so easily, the practice is opening again and again.
Beautiful, Kelly. There is a sweetness in this post that is palpable. Thank you for your faithfulness in the midst of the dark, the uncertain, the unknown. Praying the way will be clear soon and the this in-between will be rich in its own unique way.
Thanks Diana. You're faithful reading and commenting is a blessing to me. By the time I posted this, the exuberance of that 'yes' was already waning, it comes and goes so.
Faith full prayer never fails 🙂
'I believe, help my unbelief,' often seems like the best I have to give.