“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
“Coffee” mural in Lampasas, Texas. Photo by Sabrina Laumer
We yearn for the security of feeling like a finished product, having a solid sense of external identity. I am this religion, I am a ___, this is my pet, my children, my relationship status, etc. My guess is that this tendency is heightened by our use of, and exposure to social media.
The irony is that these signs of external identity do not necessarily correspond to grounding in our true (unseen) identity. It is often in the nebulous spaces where we are working things out, reevaluating, and evolving, where we can’t exactly say who we are or what we believe that the most real growth is occurring. Like a caterpillar metamorphosing in a cocoon. Or C.S. Lewis’s masterful analogy of the winged creature:
“God became man… not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders—no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings—may even give it an awkward appearance.”
I’ve reflected on the poignancy of the quote I shared in a blog post almost a month to the day I would meet my future husband in 2021, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
What I have discovered is that even the life that is waiting, is a process. It is not that the transitions of life are unattractive, but rather that they can simply be so nebulous, so immediate, and in their own way, delicate and sacred, that it can be difficult to lift our gaze and pithily announce who we are and what we’re up to.
In subsequent messages I’ll share more of my homesteading, small town living and recent art making adventures. For now, thanks for reading. If this resonates, know you have a sister in the process of becoming. You are allowed to change, and courageous to walk through your own unknowns. Like the winged horse, the most divinely inspired outcomes, can have the most uncomfortable middle grounds.
🙏🏽