the hallway between finishing and starting

where we're bound by love, and therefore, free

Well, friends. By the time you get this it won’t look like an empty document to you, but I am at the top of a blank page, not knowing what to write.

If you read my last post you might remember that I said I usually have notes and themes to sort through when I write. And I do, but I looked through them and they didn’t feel right. Or really, I didn’t feel right, because I am tiiiiiiiired.

It’s temporary. Tomorrow – or next week, or next month – will be better, but this is a funk, and it happens every time I finish a book. After running like a wild thing for months, I sit here at the desk bewildered, as though suddenly conscious after one of those long, disorienting naps, and wonder what I’m supposed to do or be when I grow up.

Wow, that was fun. Super intense, though. Now what?

And this is where I usually start rethinking my life choices, and consider selling chocolate on the black market.

(For reals, I have never had a hard time selling homemade jumbo peanut butter cups. They don’t take any marketing expertise, tech savvy, or ability to negotiate computer systems.)

Last month we talked about when we’re in transit, waiting for the next destination. And personally I feel like...wellll...I did the work, paid for the ticket, booked my passage, and here we are, still in this nebulous realm of Threshold – not quite at the destination yet, but pretty close, wandering the halls. Lots of doors in here, lots of them with labels I can’t read or understand. And I’m not sure if we’re supposed to knock so the doors will be opened or if we’re supposed to take ownership, start turning the knobs, and walk through.

So I hang out here in the foggy hallway between finishing and starting. I know this hall pretty well but the doors always look different and there isn’t a formula for finding the right one or for walking through it once you figure it out. And I told you, I’m so tired. I’m not super sure I want to walk though right now, anyway. I want to slump onto the floor and take a nap.

It’s been a rough day: one kid dawdling through schoolwork, another kid refusing school entirely, other kids arguing, and finally I’m ready to clock out and PRAISE THE LORD, it’s bath night. I go to check in with Vin before I head there, and lo and behold, there are two boys in the yard fighting with garden rakes.

Gahh. That’s all we need, I think, another visit to Urgent Care because one kid whacked another in the head with a rake.

I look at Vin, and he looks back, blankly, like it’s no big deal.

“Rakes!” I said. “I mean, is it just me? I know I’ve been super irritated all day, but...rakes?!”

“You’re starting soon,” he says.

Now it’s my turn to give him a blank look. Did he really just imply that I’m only PMSing? (Don’t try that at home, kids.)

“You look pretty,” he says. My blank look gives way to confusion.

“You’re really smart,” he says.

Confusion gives way to understanding. Ahhh. He’s trying to defuse me before he becomes the next target. I want to laugh and rage at the same time. I want to say, “Tell me more” but I also want to tell him to shut up.

We stare at each other, at an impasse.

And instead of the other things, I finally say, “Come on, Knightley,” and she follows me downstairs to the bath.

I start filling the tub and realize that now that I’ve clocked out and stopped trying, the post is coming together in my head, probably because I don’t have anything to write with.

The night before at church, we’d talked about how we do, do, do, striving after all the right things, trying to earn God’s love by doing everything good, all at the same time, forgetting that He is our righteousness, and resting in Him, instead.

The way forward has more to do with trusting in God’s perfect character and love, and letting that love cast out fear, rather than feeling like we have to do all the right things at all the right times, all at once. We need to be resting at his feet like Mary instead of trusting in our own doing, like Martha. When we do that, we are trusting in His heart – not acting in presumption or entitlement, but confident in His character and love for us.

Who He is overshadows everything else. We are bound by love, and therefore, free.

And I think that has something to do with finding the right door in this hallway, and having the strength to walk through it.

This morning I was reading about the twelve spies and the contrast of those who relied on their own (in)ability for the task ahead rather than God’s ability through them:

At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

– Numbers 13:25-30

We are in this hallway looking at all these doors, and we also are well able to overcome.

The thing about these hallways is that we tend to trip up over the fact that there are multiple doors, and we’re afraid we’ll choose wrong. So our waiting quickly becomes merged with fear and fear is just another form of disobedience. (Don’t believe me? Check how many times the command “do not fear” is in the Bible.)

But the Lord loves us. His ways are not our ways. He is not putting doors in front of us to deliberately trick us, shining light through a crack only to slam it in our face and laugh. We usually know pretty clearly the doors we absolutely must not go through, and those doors aren’t the ones in this hallway. They’re the ones behind us, and we only face them by going backward.

So, no, these doors we’re talking about are the ones in front of us – the options we know are available, but we’re trying to decide among. We get caught up in FOMO – fear of missing out – and hey, did you notice “fear” in that? We’re afraid that if we choose door A, we’ll miss the good things in doors B, C, and D.

But what if it’s not really like that? What if we don’t miss out? What if perfect love really does cast out fear, and when we trust God in obedience – even when if feels reckless and wild – He really does cause all things for good?

What if He really is who He says He is, and we really are who He says we are?

Because He is leading us more into Himself, making us more like Him. And He is not afraid. He is not overrun or overwhelmed. He is emptied out and yet full of His Father and the Holy Spirit.

He is humble, and yet leading the way forward...and He wants us to be like Him. So we are to be humble and leading the way forward, also.