August

Pictured: Sunlit rooms that are starting to feel like friends. Real friends hopping from house to house—dining, laughing, remembering. Wake surfing, or at least the brave attempts of it. Really good pickles, because simple joys are the stuff of dreams. Sun. Hemingway.

Not pictured:

Car dying in the middle of a busy intersection.

An intense, all-day stomachache.

Tearful conversations.

Lots of backspaces.

Lackluster motivation.

Questions. Doubts. Stirrings.     `

The smell of long-awaited rain.

 Also not pictured:

The strangers who flocked to help—and even circled back later to make sure you were taken care of.

The cure of good company.

The understanding gained and grace extended. The encouragement as sweet as honey.

The satisfaction of a hard-won sentence.

The promise of a new day with new inspiration.

Doubts quieted. Still questions, still stirrings, but asked in surrender. Felt in faith. Steadied by truth. There won’t always be answers, but there is always hope. An invitation to walk in the light that you have. A curiosity, hunger, and wonderment that reminds you you’re alive. That wakes you up.

The deliverance of rain, sky-loads of it—finally.       

This week, I’ve had more time and space to think. Pray. Rest. Wonder. There have been lots of emotions packed in a few short days—high highs and low lows. Laughter while sipping mango margaritas. Tears that caught me by surprise in my friends’ backyard as I watched their pup chase a squirrel. (To be clear, the squirrel chasing did not induce the tears. Let the kid run.)

Life is weird. Can we all agree on that? At one moment we feel totally content, wondering how on earth we could envision life to look any other way. And then the next, questions swirl with great ferocity. “Am I doing this right?” Sometimes fear is swept up in it—sometimes an anticipatory hope. Sometimes both. “There could be more… more than this, right in front of me. But is that what I need right now, or is it just a glimmer of something to come? What do I really want?”

What do you?

There’s no sweet platitude to wrap this up. No final word to resolve the questions or to whack at the bush full of what ifs. I think that’s okay. Because as I heard a wise leader say earlier this week, there’s beauty in this in-between. There’s value in leaning into the discomfort, the unknown. Faith in one hand and gratitude in the other. And isn’t that truly living? 

Let the rope pull you, keep your eyes ahead, and hang on tight.

The in-between is where I’ll rest today. With my unwashed hair and pile of books and heart full of dreams.