Blog Book: Real Talk

The Grey

Sometime in the Fall of 2014...

Change, to me, is a negotiation. It is a process of exchanging things, push over pull, whisking through the days and seasons of life like the pages of a standout novel.

For the longest time I lamented over the fact that this business of change was handing me the short end of the straw. For my troubles, I felt that I was not achieving anything, not going anywhere. The only memories I had made were painful, shameful, forgetful. Like freshly bleeding scabs, torn open after a foray into reality.

A lot of things have been changing lately. My best friend has moved 1500 miles away. My debut novel is going through major revisions, and I am finding the truth in kill your darlings. Fall has begun, which means school and hued trees and dried grass, new beginnings and the conclusion of all summer's endings.

And as I have encountered this change, I had discovered something about myself: I hate change. But I also hate sitting stagnant. I am afraid of the courage it takes to venture out into a new horizon, to embrace the shifting sky and sit beneath the weight of a million new decisions, wondering which ones went right and which ones went wrong. Yet at the same time, I loathe this business of not moving. Of being glued to my insecurities and my situations, of not being given the opportunity to tear myself from one page and launch into another.

I'm not sure if these things are right; if my words make sense, or if they will ever even matter. This confusion has simply been growing, blooming inside of me, jerking me in all different directions.

It has been so disabling to sit under the shadow of fear and speculate about the future.

Because in not enough time, the balance of my today world will spin me straight into tomorrow. And I have sweated under these thoughts, bit my fingernails and drained my coffee dry and wondered why the process of being alive has to be so complicated.

Yesterday, last week – I'm not exactly sure when – I stumbled across this verse that whispered straight into my veins. For a split second it took my fear from me, this glorious moment where I was able to inhale, exhale, and rest in the fact that for a small window of time, my furious thoughts were quieted.

"...our [Lord Jesus Christ]," it read, "who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." ~ 1 Thessalonians, 5:10

The thing, I think, that had been rattling under my skin was doubt. A distance from God that put life in a tilted Picasso perspective and personified my fear. This was that reminder; waking, sleeping, worrying, dreaming, every-thing, any-thing, the Lord is with me.

And despite my loneliness, my revisions, my uncertain future and my narrow present, the Lord is always with me. It seems like such a small thing to realize, but it was a beautiful thing to remember.

I cannot face change without that strength or security.

But, wake or sleep, I do not have to.

***

Also posted on my personal blog, Story of Ashlyn, which is included in the external link.