Between the Paragraphs
This current season has felt in many ways like living in the space between two paragraphs.
My nursing career is over, and I find myself in a new undefined stage. My kids are all in school, and just entering the preteen madness. My graduate degree is in progress, and I'm exactly in the middle of the program. My health, always an ongoing struggle, remains an unsolved (and just now, far more pressing) mystery.
I've written a lot about the seasons of waiting. Seasons of limbo. They are always hard in their own unique way. The patience and perseverance required in these seasons make it feel as though we were running a marathon. And then there's the unknown...
I like to frame my life through the lens of other stories. It gives me perspective and a reference point for the things I'm going through myself. There's no shortage of stories about struggles, hard times, challenges. I read them from start to finish, gleaning the wisdom I can gain from them and feeling reassured when "everything turns out" by their conclusion.
What I often forget is that in reading the stories, I have the benefit of hindsight. I know, when the characters are in the middle of their struggles, what the outcome will be. It's unfair. It's unlike my life.
Because the reality is, I don't know the outcome of any of my struggles. I don't know what form a career may take for me in the future. I don't know how my children will weather middle school and high school and the rest of their lives. I don't know if I'll successfully complete my studies--and if so, how they'll apply to my life afterward. And I truly don't know how the next several chapters unfold with my health.
It's the unknown that makes the journey most painful.
We can face any adversary we know. We can prepare ourselves, shore up our areas of weakness, when we know who and what we face. But the unknown...
The stories I read lose some of their power when I forget this element. It's tempting to imagine that it was somehow easier for the heroes to survive what they went through because it all worked out all right in the end.
This week I was reminded of some of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. Job, having lost everything but his life--his wealth, his stability, his children, his health--sits in abject misery in the ashes. For chapters and chapters he's left in the space between the paragraphs, not knowing if there will ever be another paragraph. We know the outcome, but he did not.
Jonah, having made a foolish decision to run from what he knew he ought to do, is swallowed by a large fish. Can you imagine? We know that eventually he was freed and returned to shore, but for three days and nights he sat in the pitch darkness of uncertainty, the space between the paragraphs. Was this the end of the story? Would there be more after this?
How many times did Mary find herself in these spaces between paragraphs? Pregnant, young, and scared she was forced to travel far from the friends and family who would have attended her as she gave birth. Instead, she delivers a baby in a barn in an unfamiliar land with only her husband by her side. Everything about it must have seemed wrong. Not long after, fearing for Jesus' life, they were forced to flee still farther to Egypt--a land that was not their own, among a people who were not their own. Displaced, alone, and afraid, she must have wondered if there would really be another paragraph. Had they misunderstood? Did they have it all wrong? A little later in life, Jesus--a young boy--is missing. For three days they searched high and low for him. I don't have to think hard to imagine the fear, the panic, they must have felt. And then, as we all know, she sat at his feet in his dying hour. The son she had raised. The son she'd seen through so many spaces between the paragraphs. And now the space seemed wide open again: darker and more hopeless than any other.
We know the outcome to all of these, but they did not. They were left to sit in that blank space, unsure of what would happen next--if anything would happen at all.
Yesterday I began to read the book of Ezra. The Israelites, having just emerged from seventy years of captivity, the unbearable space between their own paragraphs, returned to their homeland. They set to work immediately, rebuilding the altar. On it they offered the sacrifices that were due in that season. And then they offered every other kind of sacrifice the people brought: regular burnt offerings, New Moon offerings, sacrifices for all the appointed feasts, and freewill offerings. I can only imagine the new altar, ablaze for days with sacrifices brought by the people.
It's easy to imagine that everything was right. Everything must have felt settled to the Israelites. They were home at last, they were offering sacrifices in their own land. All was good. No wonder they felt like celebrating.
And then I read the last line of the chapter: "they began to offer burnt sacrifices to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord's temple had not yet been laid." (Ezra 3:6)
If you're at all familiar with the story of the return from exile, you know just how much lay ahead of the Israelites. It would be many, many more years before the temple would be completed. The nation lay in ruins, literally in heaps of rubble. They would face opposition from all sides. Their very lives would be endangered. There was a distinct possibility this dream of rebuilding the nation would never come to fruition. They would struggle in every way to survive.
My brother wisely advised me this week to sit with the space. He cautioned against trying to neatly resolve every uncomfortable, painful, terrifying blank moment. It's hard, isn't it? We want neatly resolved stories. We want answers that make sense of the hardship. And they may come, eventually. But it's in the waiting, in the lingering and letting the blank space do its work that we emerge on the other side as better people. It roughs up our glossy edges. It inflicts and instills deep character. It teaches us to recognize pain in others. It drives us to the end of ourselves. It teaches us to celebrate the small victories, like the altar in the heap of rubble.
I'm resolving to let the blank space do its work. Its uncomfortable, uncertain, sometimes unwanted work.
I told Micah today that I felt very much like I was in the space between the paragraphs of my life. He nodded and seemed to think it over for a minute. Then he said, "I think I am too. Only I'm at the indent in the next paragraph."
Wherever you may find yourself today--whether the space just after the end of the last chapter, the no-man's land between the paragraphs, or the indent on the cusp of something new--be still. Sit with it. Let it do its work. The story isn't yet finished, but don't rush the ending. You're in very good company.
My nursing career is over, and I find myself in a new undefined stage. My kids are all in school, and just entering the preteen madness. My graduate degree is in progress, and I'm exactly in the middle of the program. My health, always an ongoing struggle, remains an unsolved (and just now, far more pressing) mystery.
I've written a lot about the seasons of waiting. Seasons of limbo. They are always hard in their own unique way. The patience and perseverance required in these seasons make it feel as though we were running a marathon. And then there's the unknown...
I like to frame my life through the lens of other stories. It gives me perspective and a reference point for the things I'm going through myself. There's no shortage of stories about struggles, hard times, challenges. I read them from start to finish, gleaning the wisdom I can gain from them and feeling reassured when "everything turns out" by their conclusion.
What I often forget is that in reading the stories, I have the benefit of hindsight. I know, when the characters are in the middle of their struggles, what the outcome will be. It's unfair. It's unlike my life.
Because the reality is, I don't know the outcome of any of my struggles. I don't know what form a career may take for me in the future. I don't know how my children will weather middle school and high school and the rest of their lives. I don't know if I'll successfully complete my studies--and if so, how they'll apply to my life afterward. And I truly don't know how the next several chapters unfold with my health.
It's the unknown that makes the journey most painful.
We can face any adversary we know. We can prepare ourselves, shore up our areas of weakness, when we know who and what we face. But the unknown...
The stories I read lose some of their power when I forget this element. It's tempting to imagine that it was somehow easier for the heroes to survive what they went through because it all worked out all right in the end.
This week I was reminded of some of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. Job, having lost everything but his life--his wealth, his stability, his children, his health--sits in abject misery in the ashes. For chapters and chapters he's left in the space between the paragraphs, not knowing if there will ever be another paragraph. We know the outcome, but he did not.
Jonah, having made a foolish decision to run from what he knew he ought to do, is swallowed by a large fish. Can you imagine? We know that eventually he was freed and returned to shore, but for three days and nights he sat in the pitch darkness of uncertainty, the space between the paragraphs. Was this the end of the story? Would there be more after this?
How many times did Mary find herself in these spaces between paragraphs? Pregnant, young, and scared she was forced to travel far from the friends and family who would have attended her as she gave birth. Instead, she delivers a baby in a barn in an unfamiliar land with only her husband by her side. Everything about it must have seemed wrong. Not long after, fearing for Jesus' life, they were forced to flee still farther to Egypt--a land that was not their own, among a people who were not their own. Displaced, alone, and afraid, she must have wondered if there would really be another paragraph. Had they misunderstood? Did they have it all wrong? A little later in life, Jesus--a young boy--is missing. For three days they searched high and low for him. I don't have to think hard to imagine the fear, the panic, they must have felt. And then, as we all know, she sat at his feet in his dying hour. The son she had raised. The son she'd seen through so many spaces between the paragraphs. And now the space seemed wide open again: darker and more hopeless than any other.
We know the outcome to all of these, but they did not. They were left to sit in that blank space, unsure of what would happen next--if anything would happen at all.
Yesterday I began to read the book of Ezra. The Israelites, having just emerged from seventy years of captivity, the unbearable space between their own paragraphs, returned to their homeland. They set to work immediately, rebuilding the altar. On it they offered the sacrifices that were due in that season. And then they offered every other kind of sacrifice the people brought: regular burnt offerings, New Moon offerings, sacrifices for all the appointed feasts, and freewill offerings. I can only imagine the new altar, ablaze for days with sacrifices brought by the people.
It's easy to imagine that everything was right. Everything must have felt settled to the Israelites. They were home at last, they were offering sacrifices in their own land. All was good. No wonder they felt like celebrating.
And then I read the last line of the chapter: "they began to offer burnt sacrifices to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord's temple had not yet been laid." (Ezra 3:6)
If you're at all familiar with the story of the return from exile, you know just how much lay ahead of the Israelites. It would be many, many more years before the temple would be completed. The nation lay in ruins, literally in heaps of rubble. They would face opposition from all sides. Their very lives would be endangered. There was a distinct possibility this dream of rebuilding the nation would never come to fruition. They would struggle in every way to survive.
My brother wisely advised me this week to sit with the space. He cautioned against trying to neatly resolve every uncomfortable, painful, terrifying blank moment. It's hard, isn't it? We want neatly resolved stories. We want answers that make sense of the hardship. And they may come, eventually. But it's in the waiting, in the lingering and letting the blank space do its work that we emerge on the other side as better people. It roughs up our glossy edges. It inflicts and instills deep character. It teaches us to recognize pain in others. It drives us to the end of ourselves. It teaches us to celebrate the small victories, like the altar in the heap of rubble.
I'm resolving to let the blank space do its work. Its uncomfortable, uncertain, sometimes unwanted work.
I told Micah today that I felt very much like I was in the space between the paragraphs of my life. He nodded and seemed to think it over for a minute. Then he said, "I think I am too. Only I'm at the indent in the next paragraph."
Wherever you may find yourself today--whether the space just after the end of the last chapter, the no-man's land between the paragraphs, or the indent on the cusp of something new--be still. Sit with it. Let it do its work. The story isn't yet finished, but don't rush the ending. You're in very good company.
