purpose in the in between.

as soon as she walked in she reminded me of my eight year old self.

i was skinny, awkward, unsure and shy.  i remember begging my mom to take me to church because in my head somehow it computed that if we went the things at home would somehow calm down.  i knew there was peace to be found in such a place, even at such a young age.  i was too scared to go off with the other kids and so i would sit with my mom and i would just cry.  every week i would sit in the pews at that baptist church with tears streaming down my face.

seventeen years later it was all i could do not to cry during worship two weeks ago.  there was much pain in her eyes.  a lack of trust that has been built through disappointment and abandonment.  there was such a nervous energy and a desperate longing for someone to notice it.  i could see the tears welling up in her eyes.  she didn’t know it, but the lord was working and moving and tenderizing her little heart.  just as he had done to mine.  for all of the hard things in her eyes, i mostly saw hope.  hope that she doesn’t even know she needs.

for almost an hour all i could hear the lord say was “there is purpose in the in between.”  we’re constantly moving from beginnings to endings.  and so much of our lives are the in between of something.  for me, two saturdays ago, an ending came to something and i saw purpose in such a long in between.  there has been purpose in seventeen years of crying in churches.  seventeen years of becoming softer, more trusting and less walled up.  moving from someone who could barely speak to someone who has had to learn the art of just keeping my mouth shut.

the purpose often looks like a process.  in this case, it has looked very long and messy as much of my processes do.  but if it got me to the point of seeing her, hugging her, knowing in my spirit that “i get it” then that’s enough.  not because it has to be enough but because, for the first time, it really is.

as per usual, there are lots of in betweens happening in my life.  i’m in between jobs.  in between seasons of my life.  in between relationships looking certain ways.  i’m somewhere in between being a complete mess and being completely put together.  i’m in between having no answers and having it all figured out.  in jesus name, i’m somewhere in between being single forever and having found the perfect one.

there’s always an in between of something.  probably lots of somethings.  but there is purpose in it.  and today, that reminder is enough.

how about you?  what’s the in between you’re in today?