What Lies Ahead
I have a friend who loves to recite to me the refrain “your best days are ahead of you”. And although it might feel uncomfortably optimistic for someone who tends to reside in the depths, I nevertheless believe it.
Over the last couple of years, I have undergone a major paradigm shift, and with it have come the most difficult days of my life. But living into the truth tends to be a monumental task; the Scriptures are full of giants of the faith who follow where Truth leads and things only seem to get worse.
There’s a certain safety in staying stuck. You might not like it, but it’s familiar; at least you know where you are. And the lure of familiarity can be intoxicating when you haven’t historically been allowed to pursue the unknown.
There will always be people in our lives who prefer for us to stay stuck, because our flourishing will inevitably make them feel threatened. But those are the people who are themselves stuck.
People who are living into the Truth don’t celebrate those who are stuck. The truth-seekers want to empower others to leave that all-too-comfortable familiarity and chase healing and newness.
On this chase, it can be easy to focus on what you’re leaving behind. You’ll be shedding old ways that no longer fit, or maybe never did. You’ll be shedding doubts and negative thoughts; you’ll end up leaving behind people who prefer to keep you in your old skin and inner voices doing the same. You’ll also be leaving behind good things; maybe even myriad good things, because you’ve probably been sitting in the ‘stuckness’ longer than you realize.
The fact is there is grief in shedding the good and the bad. The sad reality is that every thing you leave behind will inevitably take with it a piece of you.
One of the things I am leaving behind as I live into this new era is the place my kids and I have called “home” for over nine years. It’s by far the longest I have lived in a single residence, it’s the only home my older two boys remember, and the only one my youngest has known.
There’s a lot of grieving taking place in these four walls as we mentally prepare to let go of the house that has been home. During one such conversation around the grief, I said to my boys “It won’t always be this hard.” And one of my boys replied “But what if it is?” Which simultaneously broke my heart and made me relieved he was being so open with his fears.
I responded by validating his feelings, because so often when we are in the depths we worry we will be stuck there forever. I am no stranger to despair and I didn’t want to gloss over that feeling of his, thereby making him feel ashamed for having it.
But being a rather balanced thinker and feeler, I know that when I’m deep in my feelings, sometimes rationality gives me hope. So I told him we can only see what we’re leaving behind. That’s all we know. We don’t know the beauty that lies ahead, so it’s hard to look forward to things we have yet to even imagine. Therefore the feeling “what if it never gets better” makes sense, but there is beauty ahead for us. I promise you that.
Only later did I connect it to the famous CS Lewis quote: "There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind". And although he was writing this to a friend he presumed dying, I believe it applies to any actual or metaphorical death.
It’s hard to imagine a new life. The hope and possibility are so abstract that they often slip through our fingers during moments in which we need something far more concrete.
But so often the best things are ones we can’t grab onto. We just have to trust they’re waiting for us if we keep pressing forward.
So do I truly believe my and my boys’ best days are to come? I sure do. I have to. And I’m pretty sure believing it is 90% of the battle.
Related: art has been good for my mind, body, and soul as I live into this new reality. It has poured into me and allowed for me to pour myself onto the frame. If you would like guidance and a safe space as you invest in yourself and your creativity, I have just the spot.
