Do you ever feel like you’re in a holding pattern, wandering through caves you know the Lord is guiding you through that you think will lead to the outside, but only ever lead to more cavernous spaces, the bits of light and hope intermixing with the ambiguity and shadows until they just co-mingle and co-exist as you push on?
Well if so, you’re not alone because I obviously do too. I was there, right in the mix, wandering as I made this series “documenting” the different stages of my journey. It tells the tale that progress doesn’t have to look like progress to move you forward, and I need to hear that sometimes, all the time really. Hope it speaks to you as well, wherever you find yourself today.
Wandering Through Caves 1 Busy Bee
So here’s the first, the busy bee stage of my series where I tried everything I could think of, a constant cycle of motion; of discovering, attempting, acting, and then after too few results, attempting something else, anything else that might make a difference as I travelled from cavernous space to cavernous space.
Wandering Through Caves 2 Shadow Boxing
Approached with a lighter step, this second has more room for hope, more blind faith, more peace in the mix as I took what came to me, what my busyness had brought up, and flowed with it along from cavern to cavern, trusting that I was working toward something, toward the outside, toward freedom.
Wandering Through Caves 3
This third is filled with a sense of stillness within the shadows, the kind that makes you remember when you were lost as a kid and your parents have told you to just stay still; that if you stay in one place they’ll find you. So this is me alternately going forward and staying still despite the confusion. It’s a dazed sort of wandering as I wondered whether I would ever be done with the journey or whether I would constantly see light and hope shadow boxing within the dark corners of each new cavernous space. I was turned around but taking more time to rest and wonder at the very nature of the shadows, and if they were really as dark as I once thought.
Wandering Through Caves 4 The Jump
Just when I thought I could actually adapt to the shadows of the caves if I needed to, I finally climbed up and up and out, entering the blinding sunlight and faced with a terrifying choice. Terrifying to be so open, in the open, but freeing as well to include my thoughts and feelings as I processed my upcoming change and my emotions around it in the piece itself. I wrote, “That’s high, like crazy high! I can’t go down though; going down isn’t down, it’s backwards. It doesn’t work! No everything in me says I must go up, somehow make it up to that ledge… it’s so High, it’s so scary, but everything in me says to trust God and take a flying leap.” And I did, Thank God!
