In Between

The Truth must dazzle gradually, 
Or every man be blind--
          - Emily Dickinson 

I experienced an odd feeling today--one that I've had before, but have never really reflected on all that much at the time.  Today was different.   

I was sitting with my oldest and youngest son in a cafe while we were waiting for our lunch to arrive, and I had the strangest sense of the passing of time and the importance of the moment.  

My oldest boy is getting married in September, and presumably moving on to launch a new life with his new bride.  I wondered how many moments like that I would have--sitting at a table with my boys at this age, in this season of life.  

I decided that those moments could be counted on one hand.  I felt a strange sense of the importance of that realization.  It felt like the kind of wisdom that only comes when we are open and vulnerable and knowing that life is short, precious and always on the move.  

We are almost always living in liminal moments... in-between, threshold kinds of moments... as we are moving from one place to another, leaving one season of our lives behind as move toward another.  

I don't know about you, but I am glad that I can't see too far down the road.  I don't think that I could handle the awful knowledge of what is to come.  However, I believe that everything that I'm experiencing now is preparing me for that uncertain future.  

To echo the words of the Apostle Paul, I am peering at the future through the dark glass of my present, catching only glimpses of what will be.  And that is enough for now because to know more may cause me to stop moving, and it's the act of moving that fills me with life.  

Brennan Manning once wrote: 

"To be Christian, faith has to be new--that is, alive and growing.  It cannot be static, finished, settled." 

If you have stopped moving and growing in your faith--may you feel the courage and the hope to move once more.  If you have become frozen by fear of what is to come, take heart and know that God is doing a good work in you to ready you for the future God has in store.  

You are not static, finished or settled.  Know this and be at peace.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.