Meandering Conversations

We walked today through the woods, pondering and discussing our future dreams and thoughts on life. My toe kicked acorns out of my path and at some points I stooped down and scooped them up, fingering their delicate designs. It has been two weeks full of changes, goodbyes, and new starts. We have embraced them together and our working through the state of transition as a team. Our conversation went up and down, I shared my hopes and visions for the future. Dreams of country sides, farm houses, and horseback riding.

We talked about writing, teaching, and what community looks like. I realized

the blessing of him. The ability to have someone hear my dreams and push me to continue on in them. His heart heard my heart. Maybe this is what embracing change looks like. Its a process of opening your heart, allowing oneself to be vulnerable to another despite the unknown future. With each difficult step, there is also the reward of being heard, supported, and loved.

We ended our hike through the woods with a conversation on how then do we live? We have journeyed after God, moving from our townhouse, to this lovely log cabin with my family, and now where are we to go? How do we take this radical calling to follow the way of love, faithfully loving the people on our path, finding the presence of God our simple everyday life, and hearing his voice whisper to us, into perspective? Reading, contemplating, conversing, writing, and sharing what we are learning doesn't seem enough.

And so we continue to journey, choosing the path of gratitude so that our hearts and lives can be open to the whispers of Christ.

Thoughts

I have not been blogging nearly as much as I have wanted to. It seems that life has gone from being simple without many demands into a fuller swing demanding schedule. I enjoy almost all that is happening in life right now, it is asking more of me but I am enjoying giving what I can.

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When approached by the idea of the process of grief being slow and tedious, I shyed away. I didn't want to have to even think about having to let go of something I had hoped I let go. The process of saying goodbye is much longer and more complicated then I could have ever imagined. But I am learning, slowly, very slowly.

She lifted her eyes from the steps that her feet were taking. Her eyes moved from watching the wildflowers blow in the wind to the beautiful big sky above her. It was vast, stretching farther then she could imagine. When her eyes had lifted to something so large and imense, she realized that she had been focused on something small and intricte. The wildflowers were part of her path no doubt, they were beautiful and noticing them was important. But sometimes, you have to lift your eyes up to see the larger picture. Details are important, holy pieces of ordinary life, but taking a moment to see in front of you, to grasp the enormity of all our stories is just as important.

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Saying goodbye is a small part of my story. A tiny piece in the chasm of a much larger story. I want to notice the holy detail, to grasp the beauty and pain in what is befalling my footsteps. But I also want to remember the enormity of the story. Pain, goodbyes, and grief; they are only paragraphs in the story.