On Transition, Death and Rebirth

It has been a minute since my last blog post. I’ve been in a season of deep transition as I sold my house, moved in temporarily with a friend, and made the decision to move to a much smaller place. None of which I saw coming or really had a plan to make happen.

In fact, the last 8 months of my life has been mostly about not knowing and learning to be okay in the mystery of the unknown. It has been about letting go and trusting the process. Trusting that the journey is unfolding exactly as it should.

The Gift of Vulnerability

Things were hard during those months. REALLY hard! There were moments so low that at one time in my life, I would have been sure God was punishing me for some unnamed wrong I had done.

Thankfully, instead, I saw the gift present in those low moments. They cracked me open, made space in me to experience the gift of vulnerability. The gift of sharing from a truly vulnerable space and being held and lovingly received in that space.

In the past, my vulnerability was met with shame wrapped up to look like love. In these past few months, I’ve seen love embodied without condition. I’ve been on the receiving end of acts of grace and love that healed, or more accurately are healing, wounds inside me I didn’t even know were there, caused by those I once held close.

As the wall around my heart began to come down and the light could get in through those cracked and broken places, it illuminated the wounds I had protected myself against. Wounds I had covered up and hid behind a seemingly impenetrable wall of self-sufficiency.

But we are not meant to do life alone. We are meant to be in deep, rich community with others. In this season of transition, I have experienced the power of vulnerability in helping to create that safe place of REAL community.

Living in the AND

I listened to a podcast recently where the woman being interviewed shared about death and rebirth, in particular, the space between the two. We are programmed, even conditioned, to rush through that in-between place. Yet I am discovering how much magic is present there.

Learning to abide in the AND is hard work, mostly because there is no timetable, no timeline for how long it will take, no mile-markers telling you how much further you have to go until you get there.

The last few years and especially the last eight months I have experienced death. I am not yet in the rebirth. I am living in the AND.

This has been my journey for a while but there is now a new layer to this AND. There is not simply a repairing that is happening, there is a rebirthing, a renewal and everything about me as I know myself is being reshaped, redrawn, reframed.

Through it all though I sense a re-membering unfolding. A remembering of who I truly am, the person I was before the church told me who I was supposed to be (I’ll unpack that statement in another post  ).

There is a lot of unlearning to do and there are new surprises every day. I am in the AND, living more comfortably with not knowing, staying open to the gifts inherent to this space of mystery. And above all, opening up to the grace of the unknown.

A Way Forward

Going forward I hope to resume posting regularly. I have a sense I’ll be sharing more personal things with you and I hope that’s okay. I’m processing a lot in this space of unlearning and I’d love to share more of what’s coming up for me with my community.

I don’t really have a plan and I’m okay with that but I sense there might be more storytelling. I hope my stories continue to encourage and inspire you to own your greatness. With all the changes happening in my life, one thing that hasn’t changed is my firm belief in the greatness inherent in all of us.

So as always, here’s to you rising into your greatness.

From my heart to yours,