Beginnings. Endings. And the In-between.

I’m not a morning person by nature.  But over the years my children have taught me to savor the mornings.  They are the sweetest in the mornings. Their feet bounce when they hit the floor.  They greet me with snuggles, drawing me in close, asking me to sit and be slow with them as they wake.  The possibility of play and endless imagination meets them most keenly in the mornings.

On the days I rise before my children, I get to taste the delights of the early morning.  The calmness and newness of the day settles over my soul. My creative hand finds me as I write out my waking thoughts and turn open God’s Word to meet with Him personally.

I may not be a morning person by nature, but I am falling in love with early mornings.

One of my favorite parts of the early morning is the sunrise.

Watching the blanket of darkness lift as the sunlight expands and extends its hand – touching all.  The sunrise sings a new song to my soul as I hear the world outside my door wake.

As a grand finale or a grand entrance the sun makes itself known.  The sky is set ablaze, the clouds dance with vibrant colors. Lavender and blues of various hues are painted behind bright oranges and brilliant pinks that ignite the sky.

Have you ever noticed how the sky surrounding a sunrise can have the same appearance as a sunset?

The experience of each is distinctly different, evoking feelings unique to it’s own.  And yet if you were to take pictures and look back on them you would observe just how similar the two different skies can be.   

So too in life, beginnings and endings are often painted on similar backdrops.

An ending carries emotions all of it’s own, as the weightiness of goodbye grieves the heart deeply.  While a beginning often brings anticipation and hope laced with uncertainty.

They are not the same.

And yet, if I had the opportunity to view my life from a distance I just might see similar scenery painted in the backgrounds of both.

I may see how my own tears of grief watered the very same ground from which newness was springing forth.

Endings often mark the beginning of something new rising up from within.

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Life is full of transition.

And yet, transition is where transformation happens.  In the in-between.

The sunrise happens

in-between  

night and day.

The sunset happens

in-between

day and night.

The beauty of being transformed into the likeness of Christ happens while braving transition.  Beginnings, endings and the in-between.

Surprisingly, braving transition looks like a lot like surrender.  Jesus, himself, conquered death by first offering-up his life.

In the midst of life’s hardest transitions, surrender is our best offering in our bravest moments.

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Transition in life is hard.  There is no way around it.  But there is beauty in it.

As God molds us and transforms us, we can trust that He is doing a work deep within.

Creating a kind of beauty deep below the surface in our inner-most being that we could never create on our own.

So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer-self is wasting away, our inner-self is being renewed day by day.

2 Cor. 4:16

 

Day by day.

The sunrises.

The sunsets.

There is beauty and

There is purpose in

Beginnings

Endings

And in the

In-between.