Inciting Incidents

The inciting incident for life change is almost always heartbreak- something becomes broken beyond repair, too heavy to carry; in the words of the recovery movement, unmanageable. (Shauna Niequist Present over Perfect)

So much of my heart has broken in recent years. I am not sure when it started. Maybe it was after the first time in high school, earlier? Maybe later. In the big and the little incidents that have pulled parts of my heart away that I have held close, held dear, held too tightly. In the last four years or so, it has been broken and broken and broken in different little and bigger ways. Either self-inflicted as I have studied counselling and pulled myself apart to allow myself to be put together again, or when friends and loved ones have exercised their free will to choose, or to leave, and in some cases my heart has broken as I have been the leaver, or the one to allow things to stop, or lie broken.

In the last year I had reached a point again where I had thought life was going to change again. It was exciting, hope-filled and going in a certain direction, and yup, I was happy to head that way with my whole life. And then it didn’t. Badly, Sadly. Broken heartedly. And then you pick yourself up yet again and take a new look at what was and is and one hopes to come.

I am learning that life is one of constant laying down, of releasing and holding with open hands. It’s offering what is, not what we think it should look like or want it to look like- all those expectations that we place upon ourselves, others, and vice versa. And it might look empty and isolate, but it also creates space for picking up our best and the best in others, and to allow ourselves to live an authentic life that allows us all to be whoever we are truly created to be. It’s messy and doesn’t make the best use of our time. It may not look magazine perfect, but it’s our present and our life. Our people and our hope. I am learning to be ok with laying expectations down, hopes and dreams and being ok with what is, and giving space for what is to come. There are so many opportunities and possibilities as a result and in laying some things down which look perfectly good- just not good for me, it gives space to what is better, is a more natural fit- it gives space for the impossible!

Life is currently in the middle of impossible- a space I never, ever thought would be possible in a million years. In this way or on my own and yet it’s an impossible situation that is right in the middle of happening! It’s exciting, hopeful, looks different to what I thought life would be like, but looks real, and spacious and hope-filled. I don’t know what it will all look like or how it will turn out, or how big the changes will be. I have a sneaking suspicion that I might be limiting the ‘change’ to one area of life when actually it’s much deeper, broader and far reaching. And that’s ok with me! It’s in God’s good hands! And in the steady breaking open, it’s allowing the new in and bringing life in a whole new way. I know it will break and break and break, but that’s not where it finishes- that’s the start. It’s in the healing and repair and rebuilding that new life comes, and the seasons continue.