A new friend of mine shared this poem on her blog, and I couldn't help but see how true it is for all of us here who are embarking on this new part of our journeys, where the questions that have been silently hidden in the folds of our hearts are surfacing, where we're taking small and tentative steps forward in the fuller embrace of our lives, where we're feeling more alive even in the thick of self-doubt and fear. Walk on, my friends. Let's walk on together.
For a New Beginning
by John O'Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
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Wisdom. Faith. Grace. Becoming.
For different reasons, we're all in the crucible. We're walking through a season of intensive refinement, punctuated with celebrations and miracles. We wonder and ask, what is God doing? Where is He? And when it hurts the most, we beg for His deliverance. We struggle to open our hands and our hearts to Him even as we question His presence and purposes in this place. We cry out for Him to show us what He intends for our lives.
And then we are challenged to ask:
What if, instead of pleading His intervention, we acknowledge His presence and thank Him for these crucible moments? What if, instead of asking Him to deliver us from this place, we ask Him to deliver us in this place?
None of us knows the answer, but it is clear He has given us each other to lean in on and walk with. Our tears and prayers and questions spill together. We can each find a reason we don't quite belong, but we know all the same that He brought us together for a purpose that as of now, remains hidden in Him.
This is us, walking through it together. This is us, sojourning through a land where the line between faith and crazy is sometimes imperceptible. Reach out in the dark, and you will find the hand of a friend.
Sometimes we stand and wait, trusting that our seeming stillness somehow amounts to best honoring and serving our King. And sometimes we have the chance to open our windows so everyone can see and to say: Even if He does not show up, I will not bend my knee to another.
Dedicated to the glory of God and for the purposes of His kingdom.
Sarah, Christianne, Christin, and Kirsten
For different reasons, we're all in the crucible. We're walking through a season of intensive refinement, punctuated with celebrations and miracles. We wonder and ask, what is God doing? Where is He? And when it hurts the most, we beg for His deliverance. We struggle to open our hands and our hearts to Him even as we question His presence and purposes in this place. We cry out for Him to show us what He intends for our lives.
And then we are challenged to ask:
What if, instead of pleading His intervention, we acknowledge His presence and thank Him for these crucible moments? What if, instead of asking Him to deliver us from this place, we ask Him to deliver us in this place?
None of us knows the answer, but it is clear He has given us each other to lean in on and walk with. Our tears and prayers and questions spill together. We can each find a reason we don't quite belong, but we know all the same that He brought us together for a purpose that as of now, remains hidden in Him.
This is us, walking through it together. This is us, sojourning through a land where the line between faith and crazy is sometimes imperceptible. Reach out in the dark, and you will find the hand of a friend.
Sometimes we stand and wait, trusting that our seeming stillness somehow amounts to best honoring and serving our King. And sometimes we have the chance to open our windows so everyone can see and to say: Even if He does not show up, I will not bend my knee to another.
Dedicated to the glory of God and for the purposes of His kingdom.
Sarah, Christianne, Christin, and Kirsten
9 comments:
This made my poem wall in my office (though pretty soon I'll have to start rotating them out, because, seriously, how much wall will they let me cover with inspiring poetry?). It still makes me teary when I read things like this and think about our time...wow. For me, it is a "wow" because I usually keep my emotions so much to myself...so wow.
And thanks.
You have a poem wall?! So cool. What other kinds of poems have made the wall so far?
It really gives me perspective on how this has been for you to hear that you usually keep your emotions to yourself, since I know your eyes have been brimming with lots of tears in front of the computer screen over this past week. So I say back to you: Wow.
Um...I have this poem, and The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and the "you will greet yourself arriving" poem by Derek Walcott, and John Burroughs that starts out "The lesson/ which life repeats and constantly enforces is/ "Look under foot." And then some questions and ideas I've had about who I am and where I'm going, and some posties with sayings and words and prayers that have meant a lot. I'm lucky--my desk is such that I can do these things and it isn't too invasive of the general office space.
And "wow" is still about the extent of what I can offer. It's so different for me to find myself spilling over all the time like this. Different but good.
I'm thinking I've seen a few of those poems/lyrics on other blogs in the past few months. Hmm . . . we must read the same blogs! (Just kidding. I know we cover a lot of the same ground out there.) :)
Right here spilling over with you, sister. I've been hit with so much emotion and weepiness as I've been reading my texts for school and considering what my heart is for.
We read the same blogs? No way!!! (kidding, kidding)
It's so cool that you're really letting your reading in to slosh around in your soul. Here's to more good tears.
i don't know what to say. but i'm here & i'm listening, letting the words wash over me.
those words are perfect for us.
Wow! (I know it's been said, but that is my response.) I feel like one of you must have written this poem, because it is so fitting to where we are. Then I think, ahhhh! God is so big! Not only is he doing big stuff with us, he is doing it with others all over the world, and he can tie things together. I praise God that he brought this poem into our circle. I find it encouraging and comforting.
Me too, Christin. Kirsten and I were talking last night about how utterly fitting these words are . . . all of them . . . for exactly where the four of us find ourselves. Totally amazing. How did he do that??!
Magic. God-magic.
;)
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