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We often think of new beginnings being major life transitions. However, beginnings can be more subtle. You breath in, you breath out. Each inhaling is a beginning; each exhaling is a beginning.
New beginnings offer the excitement of freshness, challenge, and discovery, but that is not all. Beginnings entail endings. Each inhale is the ending of the previous exhale, and vice versa.
As I begin living in a new community, serving a new pastorate, and meeting new persons, the ironies and paradoxes of the Journey reverberate in me. In this new beginning, I have known the experience of sitting at the dinner table alone, in tears and prayer, feeling overwhelmed with the uncertainty and joy. Likewise, I have known moments of deep fellowship, in enjoying newly forming relationships and, also, moments of a profound sense of the Nearness of God. Change brings these apparent opposites of emotional experience.
The image that is foremost in mind today is of a journey I had as a little boy. My mother led us home in the dark, after church Services one Sunday. Between the sanctuary and home was a large wood of pine trees. Greg, the oldest son, Mike, the middle son, and Brian walked in line following our mother, Lynett. On the other side of the trek through the wood was a frame house with the front porch light on, but a light we could not see for most of the walk through the pines. However, my mother led us through that passage of darkness to the light and the shelter and safety of home. She knew the way, and we trusted her.
Life entails change upon change. Every day we encounter like situations but in many variations. We have to be ready and prepared to adapt to these changes and work creatively with life. We need to acknowledge our feelings, likewise knowing they are undergoing constant change.
However, this writing is not a psychology lesson on change. This writing is a theological statement about change. That statement is, simply, totally, that we are never alone. Feelings can range, in cycles, between feeling companioned and comforted by Spirit to feeling bereft of all companionship. We can rejoice in new experiences and still be grieving the loss of past experiences. Simply put, transition is process, not a single jump.
Therefore, yesterday, I was traveling down Interstate 75 and knew the closeness of the Spirit Presence. I sensed as though a touch was placed on the center of my chest. I stopped at a rest stop, walked to the back of it with my dogs, lifted my hands to the sky and knew the wonder and image of Love with and within me. Then, today, I felt deep ache and aloneness. Both experiences are part of the whole process of the Journey and are not to be seen as opposites. God is fully in both the sense of companionship and the sense of aloneness.
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Why would I share this autobiographical writing? Because you have this same experience. You know life as Journey. You know what it feels like to be companioned, befriended, and loved deeply. Then, you know that aching aloneness, whereby you cry out in tears or just remain in silence, letting your heart speak through its outreaching for embrace again.
But just like with my mother leading us three small children through the darkness of the wood, you are not alone. God is with you. You can ask, “How is God with me?” Just look. God looks out through the eyes and reaches out through the heart of those who deeply care for and love you. A hand can be the hand of Christ. A word of encouragement can be the word of Christ. And the prayer of soul mates can be an energy that strengthens you through the chaos of change and brings comfort to your heart in its sensations of endings and beginnings.
Jesus said to his closest followers, just before he was to leave them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (St. John 14.18; ESV). In true friendship, through all the beginnings and endings, we can, too, say to those we dearly love, “Though much changes, the love we share remains. I will never leave you, or forsake you.” Now, that is the Love that not only tells someone how to get out of the wood, that Love will, like Christ, share the Journey by being with you.
Finally, then, surrender is essential here. New beginnings and endings call us to say, “Yes.” “Yes, come share this Journey with me. I need your help, strength, wisdom, courage, and companionship.” When we say that to Spirit, a vacuum of openness invites Spirit in, and Spirit fills up the space formed from openness. However, remain open to discern how Spirit is manifesting in response through persons. As I have and am still learning, Spirit brings into our lives persons providentially selected to companion us, even as Spirit places us in the lives of other persons to companion them.
Spiritual Exercise
Give gratitude today for persons whom God has placed in your life to companion you.
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