hello my old friend

There are moments when I can see the end of summer approaching in the way sunlight filters through the trees. It isn't difficult to imagine myself waking up in a few months with the floor feeling cold beneath my feet and the streets looking like ink in the glow of a streetlight. I can imagine stepping outside into a heavy fog and everything ringing with silence, my breathing sharp like a staccato. Somehow, even in the heart of summer I am already caught in the wake. This is all to say that yesterday a woman came up to me at work and told me she was afraid of winter coming again: I can't go through it again if it's like last year, she murmured.

At first, her honesty took me by surprise, but her words caught hold of my own. This too, was a surprise. I have never loved summer, the sticky heat and unapproachable sunlight. I have always felt more at home in the transitioning times, the moments that spring out from the ground as the backbone of winter is loosened. Yet this year, summer is all gold and I'm holding my breath.

You tell me that today is the gift and I watch in awe as you live fiercely in the moment, wondering at your strength to look the present in the eye and embrace it for what it is despite knowing full well that tomorrow might be colder. Because here I am, still reeling back my heart from tomorrow and peeling away my fingers from ten years down the road. You tell me to let go and I am wondering how to let go of something that hasn't even happened yet. How to release my grip. Sometimes, I am afraid I will be unable to hold these precious moments in my hands. That I will look away and they will have slipped between my fingers. I am afraid that the winter will come and every river will freeze and it will be months and months again until I thaw. I am afraid of retreating footsteps and lingering memories, of not being strong enough, of waking up in darkness like that year, of stepping into the light and having to hide my eyes because it's been so long.

I remember anxiety in ruthless moments that catch me off guard. Yet these are only ghosts of the past and I'm beginning to see that now. I can see how every moment was redeemed, how even despite the gaping flaws, I was led out of and through. In the moments when I am the most honest with myself I realize that I was an ocean away from light and as it gleamed behind me I still swam into the heart of the storm. Yet the Light of the world throws open the windows and doors and I think this summer doesn't just feel like the season around me, but in me as well.

My fear of tomorrow is like accepting a gift and being too afraid to open it incase I tear the wrapping and it won't be what I expect. Holding up the moment to God and saying, thank you, but what about tomorrow? Will you be there too? What if this brings pain later on? What if? What then?

I'm trying to say that these last couple months have been all hope and it no longer fits like a sweater too small. It's been all light that puts back the pieces. Like letting people in even when it's terrifying, and stepping forward with shaking hands and saying, I want you to know my story and then watching as they stay- I stay. Settling into a new state and finally being able to give directions without everyone getting lost. Flying over the bay and wanting to weep because it looked like home.

It's been a lot of deep breaths. A lot of feeble prayers that are being interceded for. A lot of falling dishware and shattering pieces and curling up in bed and fighting to keep my focus on the promises that encompass both today and tomorrow. I'm learning to trust, learning what it looks like to struggle through my own fear and allow God to speak louder. Slowly, surely.

This summer, in our small town that is surrounded by the Canadian Rockies, the Cascades, and the ocean, you can roll down your windows as you're driving home from work and the air is heavy with the sweet scent of raspberries. Wild flowers bloom in the fields until everything is flecked with buttercup yellow, delphinium blue, and the brilliant sun of goldenseal. In the evenings, sunsets put a lump in my throat. Everything is shrouded in silhouettes against a sky that is deepening blue overhead and apricot against the horizon. Trees are perfectly cut-out, the outline of the Rockies are all pastels. Yesterday, a crescent moon shone over the trees and the other day, I told my parents that this place fills my heart up full. I don't know how else to say it.

I feel as though I am awakening after a long sleep and rediscovering a part of myself I'd thought was lost. This child-like sensitivity to life, this freckle-faced admiration for the little, forgotten moments, the off-road adventures. These days, I remember Oma in a gentle way that takes my breath away, I can see her kneeling down to pray every night and hearing my name fall from her lips. Is it strange to say that I feel her prayers still? I think grief has forged into something achingly beautiful.

It is the very beauty of these days that simultaneously makes my heart shake with fear. Do you see? I am fighting with tomorrow because I am afraid of losing the hope of today and the ground that has been gained from where I was. Yet who am I to think that I've walked this path alone? That I have dragged myself from the lowest place and somehow found myself here? isn't this grace? Isn't this the place where faith is found? To look into an impossibly shrouded tomorrow and trust that the same God who held my hand through this moment will also be there for the next, and the next, and the next. Perhaps, I am realizing that there are no promises for what the future will bring, but as long as I keep moving towards the light, as long as I allow it to shake my heart wide open, and even if, even if... still, he remains. I keep being reminding that He is the Father of lights. This idea of light casting out darkness and with it, fear, is presiding over my heart. In this, I rest. Thinking about what Paul said, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God because this is the only way I know how to battle this fear that grabs onto my throat. To dive deeper and deeper because my spirit already knows how to fall, so why not fall at the foot of the cross?

His grace is sufficient. Again and again.