Good morning…
“Transitions are gaps,” writes Margaret Silf on page 20 of The Other Side of Chaos. “They mark the gap between the no longer and the not yet. They are the space where we are neither in one place nor another, the hiatus between everything we knew and all that lies ahead in the unknowable future. They mark the place where a certain order breaks down and chaos arises.”
In class we discussed the various transitions surrounding us. Adjusting to illness, divorce, retirement. Making peace with a move, an ex-spouse, an expanding family. Grieving the loss of a loved one, a beloved life phase, our dream of how life was “supposed” to be. Missing the known, the familiar, the predictable, we inch our way through transitional times, but how?
“Every kind of gap is a space between certainty and bewilderment,” Margaret continues on page 21. “We thought we had it all together, and now we are not sure where to go or what to do next. We are on the edge of a strange new land, and we don’t know its ways or its language. We are often alone on that edge and think we have no friends there, and that sense of isolation can be one of the most crippling aspects of transition.”
We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all (1 Corinthians 8:2-3, MSG).
“It turns out, in fact, that the gap is not to be avoided at all but is to be minded, in the best sense of the word,” Silf notices on page 24. “We are to pay attention to it, not because it is waiting to swallow us up into danger but because it is our personal, God-given tutor to prepare us for the next phase of our lives.”
Minding the gap at hand, we notice, we discern, we are guided by the Tutor of transition. It is humbling to realize, “I really don’t know enough about what lies ahead.” Yet, day by day, we are being prepared for the next phase of our lives, being strengthened from within by the God who alone knows it all. Slowly stretching into this transitional gap, we deepen into a maturing faith that simply says, “I don’t know, but I trust.”
…Sue…
