Fasten your seat-belts.
Sometimes I wonder if God gets a small measure of amusement at my tiny soap opera of a life.
Honestly.
The rate of crazy things, and how quickly my life changes, is truly astonishing.
Or is it?
Maybe everyone's life is like this, maybe it's part of being human.
My mom and I had a chat over Christmas about the bizarre things that have happened to our family. How it seems like we can't have a single year without some strange storm to blow us off course.
And I realized my life has lacked constancy ever since I was born.
Growing up a missionary kid, we were always moving, always making new friends, always travelling to new churches to raise support.
Politics forced us back to Canada, we had a year and a half of perceived peace, then we up and go to Winnipeg, of all places. But even there, what we thought we came for changed.
Change, change change.
Curves ahead.
Rocky road.
Turbulence.
Career changes, changing churches, house renovations.
I was swept in the tidal wave, adapting as best I could.
I was good at it. I became adept at letting people in, and letting people go. Staying deeply unattached. I craved constancy, even though I had no name for it at that point.
How I longed for a rock in the surging sea of change.
I found solace in books, knitting, music, and my dog.
The unasked question, every time I met a new person.
"Will you stay?"
Now, at 21, I see life works in cycles. Seasons.
The question is answered. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
I've spent a majority of my life trying to cling to shreds of what I thought would last forever.
Sound familiar?
and yet,
"Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well
All manner if things shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
Excerpt from "Little Gidding" of The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
