“Once the Shepherd stooped and touched the flowers gently with his fingers, then said to Much-Afraid with a smile, ‘Humble yourself, and you will find that Love is spreading a carpet of flowers beneath your feet’.” (Hinds Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard)

It is easier, I think, to live outside of ‘the blessing’ (as Henri Nouwen calls it) – easier to live in a place where we feel abandoned. That is the narrative that is screaming out at us from the world in which we move. It is easy for me, right now, to feel that this narrative is even louder – even more convincing – than for anyone else. Everywhere I turn in my life, people are experiencing blessing; they are planning their families, they are reading books about advancing their careers, they are dreaming of adventures, expecting to live long enough to embark upon them.

I, on the other hand, am in this liminal, in-between, space. I feel full of life and bursting with possibility, and yet I have been told I will be dying soon. I was at a Christmas brunch for our church small group this morning. There were four couples, two of which had just had a new baby, and one of which was pregnant. Naturally, the conversation turned to children and babies and parenting. None of the people there were insensitive to me and nothing was said that was hurtful or inappropriate, and yet, even while I was laughing and joking, I felt that I was almost separate from everyone, watching myself from afar. Physically, I was a 32 yr old woman, sitting in a hot pink dress and sparkling with delight at the new babies. But somewhere inside I was running around confused, like a horse that is trapped and has nowhere to run, nowhere to expel her excess energy and rage at being confined unexpectedly – at being unable to do what it was born to.

And my question is – how do I reconcile this rage, this terror, this pain with the idea that I am ‘not abandoned’? I feel somehow, in my spirit, that Jesus is telling me ‘you are front and centre of my gaze’. Somehow, I know this with a deep knowing, somewhere inside of me. I know that I need to focus upon this truth, to grow it, to allow it to consume me – to become bigger than what I can see around me.

I also know that the question ‘why’ will never help. It is not really a question – it’s a cry of pain. I got stuck in ‘why’ for at least a decade – and it was a dead-end – He doesn’t seem to answer it.

I have very few answers today and a lot of questions. I’ve been sitting here, waiting for the pain and the doubt and the grief to diminish but it seems to be lingering – like a fog with no wind.

But I do feel life in these words that I am reading. I don’t know why I am sitting in this space, and I don’t know why He is not clearing it, but at least some part of me believes I really am ‘front and centre’ of His gaze – and I know that here is life.

I felt it just now in the friend who just mowed our front lawn. When I felt the rush of guilt and my insides screwed up in shame, I decided to humble myself, to accept the help, and to be grateful for being loved. I felt it in the neighbours from across the street who just brought over a Christmas present and kept repeating that we should ask for ‘anything – anything at all’ that we needed from them. I see it in the way that an older couple from church are giving up their time, making a priority of coming over to share a meal with us and to be here emotionally in our journey.

And so I will get up from this computer now, still uneasy, emotions unresolved, circumstances still very much unexplained, and start to look for the wildflowers scattered at my feet.