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I am feeling the nearness of a big transition yet again, this seems to have been my state for the last few years now as I have moved and moved again, lived through the end of my marriage and discovered that almost overnight my once full nest is empty as all of the chicks have flown and settled elsewhere. Yesterday I took a car load of garden waste to the recycling centre, grateful that much of it can  be recycled, though a bit annoyed that because of the metal and plastic mix on an old hose reel that it had to go in the can’t be recycled skip!

I wonder if any life experiences are best simply walked away from, or whether we can if we dare learn and grow through them all? I suspect that the answer is yes,  followed quickly by a BUT. … I have discovered the uselessness of picking over old hurts and wounds and the freeing release of choosing forgiveness and letting go, and of acknowledging that this must be an ongoing process because old wounds have a habit of sneaking up from nowhere and making their presence felt.

Life then is a constant moving on, despite our somehow inbuilt human need to be settled, so perhaps this reflects the fact that we try to be settled in the wrong things! We look for security in what is passing and fail to see the real security of what is truly secure.

Over the past few years I have faced my own faults and failings in a way that I have never done before, and more importantly I have learned the deep gift of loving myself anyway, the gift that for me has flowed from the even deeper acknowledgement that the God of love that I have preached fr years truly is a God of love and does not wait for us to get our sh*t together before deeming us loveable. I have both always known this and yet refused to know it, pride wanted me to earn my place in love, while love always and ever calls me to let go and let love transform me.

I have been drawn again and again to Jesus call to the weary ones (Matthew 11: 28-30), the call simply to come and allow him to shoulder the weight I have been struggling to carry, to allow him to lead me through the unforced rhythms of grace as they circle and bless my life. In this outward appearances and the need for success and to prove something become unimportant where once they were what I thought I must project to the watching world ( as if the world were watching me anyway!!!).  These days I am less inclined to rush to fix something, or brush it under the carpet but to allow myself to walk through it and learn from it, sometimes the most precious gifts come from living with the questions and the darkness for just a little longer allowing healing to flow naturally rather than be forced.

So I am on the edge of another move, a physical move from place to place, and I am allowing for the goodbyes to be tinged with sadness, even pain and a little regret. I want to move on with the knowledge that while things may not have been perfect that forgiveness is offered and received and we have strived to do the best that we can together despite our faults and flaws. I am also aware that I am not moving to a place of perfection and that I will have much to learn in my onward journey.

Most of all I acknowledge that I will for this earthly time always be living an in-between life, living with the now and not quite yet tension of perfection and imperfection, content that this is my security, that order is being drawn from my chaos, and that I am being transformed bit by bit into the image of love that has always dwelt at my core. For I am always and only ever love made for love, and my brokeness and sins ( things that separate me from that core) will slowly but surely fall away providing I do not try to cover them with my false masks of perfection.

So one more step along the world I go…. inbetween…but on my way home…