The Space In Between

I hate in betweens. I know they are good and have purpose. But I don't like them. I don't like the tension they create, the back and forth of it all.

It's like seasons. I like summer. I like fall. I like winter. I don't like the in between days of the seasons...where it snows for two days and then disappears into 70 degree weather. Make up your mind weather. Are we wearing shorts or is it time for the boots to come out?! And I don't like spring. I know that sounds crazy, because I should like spring, right? That's when new things are born, we come out of the rest and slumber of winter and reawaken into the beauty of nature and creation.

Maybe the deeper truth is I don't like change. And yet if things didn't change I would get so bored. Ugh, I am a walking paradox. Think about it. I don't like the cold frigid winters, or the muddy turmoil of the thawing into spring. Yet (and please know you can all quote me and remind me of this when i'm back in the Minnesota winter) sunny and 70 all year gets boring!

I am a walking contradiction. I don't like change, yet I love new things. I value security and steadiness and yet am not fully me if I'm not laying it all on the line and going after bigger, deeper things.

The in betweens prepare us right? They prepare us for what is next. The warn us of what's coming. They beckon us to celebrate what is and has been as we prepare to move forward into what is next.

I think what I don't like in the in betweens is the loss. Even though it's preparing you for a new season and that is exciting, there is still the loss of the old season.

It's like Starbucks--I love that Christmas means peppermint mochas, but it also means the retirement of the pumpkin spice latte (yes I know you can technically order this all year round, but I don't... I roll with the seasons). Or it's like an expectant mother. Gone are the full nights of sleep. And while it's preparing you for post-baby, the baby isn't there yet... it's a sleepless night because of the discomfort of the end of the in between season... you're living out the reality of the next season while still waiting on the promise of the little one to arrive.

Ugh the in betweens. Perhaps I'm bad at them because I lack patience. I'm always wanting to get to the next thing, to move forward, to master the season or training or learning and move forward. But perhaps the training to be mastered in the in between is that things constantly change and we have to learn to roll with the change.

I feel like with my personal life I have been sitting in an in between for quite some time. And I feel strongly that the time has come to step out of the in between and move forward into this next season. But it means things are going to change. And it means things I valued in the season are going to be lost. I can't step into the next season still living the way I do in this one. I can't have a total physical transformation and not change what life looks like today... otherwise it would already be happening.
I have to say good-bye to what I've known and who I've been so that I can step into what I know and who I am.

I don't know what I look like on the other side of this journey. I don't know what life holds on the other side of this journey. I just know I cannot stay here in this place any longer.

It's time to move forward...into a new in between... out of the old in between.

It's everything I want...and everything I fear. All at the same time.

I'm stepping into love. I'm stepping into me. And letting go of all I've known.