I don't have the story that I would have chosen, the types of friendships that I might possibly prefer- certainly not the depth of friendship in the places I had expected. I don't have the happily ever after that I thought might happen, and over the last year have had to lay down the things most dear to me all over again, more completely and more finitely.
Doors have been closing left, right and centre, and grief has been long and deep. Of loss, sorrow and new depths of lack and emptiness. There is the realisation that I had trusted certain things, relationships, paradigms, values that hade ultimately fallen, and that while they were all well and good, my direct reliance on them may not have been such a good thing. They were all good, but weren't meant to be in the place that I had given them. But the space creates opportunities for new life, growth. Seeds that were planted long ago have been given the space, time, season to lie fallow so that new life could be reborn and a new story, a new version of the happy ending could emerge with room to truly flourish.
But I am finding that the laying down doesn't mean there is nothing. Out of the laying down, the space, the drought and desert is emerging an oasis. Something new, new life, direction, new hope and a new story is introducing itself, and while I don't know what the storyline is, I am leaning more on the one who does, trusting Him more, and learning to walk with Him better.
I won't find what I have been looking for where I have been searching, and that irks me, especially the relationship side of it, but will find it, and more in Him, in walking each day out with Jesus in a whole new way, and it's not that the last chapter was wrong or I was on the wrong path, but it seems that a new journey is becoming apparent, and new themes are emerging.
It's early days yet and who know what will try to return or should remain, or takes on a different role in the garden that is emerging.
Recently I was angry all over again, at the situation and sadness over losses, for no good reason other than each day is another step away from where I have wanted to be, or thought I should be, and that loss brings fresh grief. I was with some people last night, and looking around, started to wonder at what I was looking for or trying to create or find. Of community, intimacy and a group of people who know you well and your are known. I looked around this group of people and have marvelled at them, of how the group has come to be together, of the contexts in which we all first met- and for many of us it has been many years in the making in a very different context, and yet, we have been brought together into this new season, and it is immensely good.
I don't like letting go because it feels so much like giving up, and yet in the releasing and surrender of my expectations and hopes, it gives space for Jesus to grow something new, or give new life to what has been given. It gives space for a whole new story to emerge!
