All Shall Be Well

On learning to let go and look up

I sit here under blue skies littered with a thin haze of white clouds. The tobacco smoke from my pipe floats weightless away in the air, reminding me that my life is a lot like that.

Here today, gone tomorrow.
A breath. A mist. A vapor.

And somehow, that wild truth frees me.

It frees me to live. To enjoy this moment. To delight in the small things and not fret over what I can't control or fill my mind with anxious thoughts. Jesus said you can't add even an hour to your life by worrying, so I guess I should just spend the little hours I do have attentive. Attentive to the birds, the warmth of the sun on my skin, the books on my shelves, the kids running through the backyard laughing. 

Another wisp of smoke floats away and I breathe slowly, lifting my gaze upward. That's where I want my eyes to be, but if I am honest, most of the time they can tend to be on myself. How I came off in that moment, what others think of me, how well I did, etc. But I've sensed a change over the years. It's been slow, but I am becoming more comfortable in my skin, more confident, more awake to who I was created to be. 

That's the journey, isn't it?

Becoming who we already are. Not having to create some new identity up for ourselves but discovering that unique person that God had made us to be all along. That person is there. They were always there, often just buried under the rubble of performance, insecurities, and the mixed propaganda of a culture that says fit in or be left behind. I've caught myself saying to my wife a few times this last year "I really like who I am becoming." I don't think that comes from a place of pride. But I am proud. And I feel God's smile over my life. And that's everything to me.

And so I lift my gaze upward.

The tree that was barren all winter with a skeleton outline has now exploded with green leaves and white flowers, reminding me that good things take time. You can't rush the process. There is no shortcut around the valley. We all need seasons of death and dormancy. Just a few weeks ago the tree looked lifeless. Now it looks like it's bursting with more life than it knows what to do with.

I think we grow more like trees than we realize. There are seasons in our lives. Seasons of things being stripped away, seasons of stillness, seasons where new seeds need to be planted, and seasons where the branches are laden with ripe fruit.

We all want the fruit, but we don't want to wait. But patience is the name of the game. I don't really like being patient. But all the good stuff of life is on the other side of it. Of waiting. Of deep work done slow over long seasons. And so we wait, but not without hope. We wait with expectancy.

The little tobacco that is left in my pipe is now just ash. The sun is moving slowly in the sky and now I sit under a cool canopy of shade as planes and birds both fly over my head. I read over what I have written to my kids and they give me wide smiles and I am reminded of the words from Julian of Norwich, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."