on endings and beginnings

i have not blogged well or consistently this year. i wonder whether that is due to a lack of words to say, or the fear of putting words to what is happening inside of me. maybe both.

2014 has ended, perhaps one of the hardest and most wonderful years of my life. and 2015 has begun, and i am inching ever closer to the fulfillment of my goals, to some form of the achievement of "success," and the deep and abiding fear that comes with it.

fall was difficult, to say the least. i am a therapist now. i have clients, the stakes are higher now than they ever have been. i have not found my footing. i question myself, my desires and abilities, and wonder if i will ever feel competent. some days are better than others.

fall was also a time of spiritual space. as in, i took some from church. i did not attend services on sundays between september and december, save one to support a friend. this has taken a toll on me, though it has felt necessary. come this sunday i will make my return, in a new environment, and i will begin the task of relearning what it means to worship corporately in a sanctuary. i am somewhat nervous for this, as it has been quite some time since i can recall being truly worshipful during a sunday morning service.

perhaps because of this space, and the way that i have encountered god in it despite being disconnected from a worshipping community, i have joined a group of people called the well who are committed to prayer, scripture, worship and fellowship. i feel called to this space, but i am still learning what it looks like for me to be a part of it. for example, i have failed at being in scripture daily, because scripture and i have not been on speaking terms in nearly a year. i have encountered god far more intimately outside of it than inside, and i have questioned the role it plays in a life of faith. at the same time, i feel the desire to reconcile with scripture, to encounter the Word in the word, and to actually figure out what i believe its role to be. so i am going back and beginning with the gospels, to hopefully encounter the jesus who shifted my being so solidly as to necessitate the break in the first place.

i feel simultaneously incredibly full and incredibly empty, and i don't understand how that can be so. i am filled by the beauty of those i hold dear: the ones who will cry and laugh with me, sit in broken spaces with me, and whose little giggles and cuddles lift me high. and i am emptied by the sense of perpetual change that exists in my current state of being, by the fear that despite the familial nature of the company i keep i will always be alone, and awareness of the razor thin edge of the line i walk between success and failure in my career.

so, deeply i inhale the beginnings of this year, breathing in the animating presence of the one who is with me and you and us. remembering this breath is the same presence that names, calls, moves and sustains.