EVEN HERE, YOU’RE STILL MOVING FORWARD

Whenever you start to feel like the days are going on and on and running into one another, may you know that even here, you are still moving forward. Even if your heart feels like it's stuck in a place where the seasons are indiscernible, and you can't make it through, even then, you are still moving forward as surely as the days and months on the calendar. Keep in mind that this can feel like it's nearly impossible to see in real-time. 

Even in places where the leaves on trees seem to change colors overnight, there is still a process that these trees go through each year, and you won't be able to see every stage of that process by just standing by the tree.

If you went outside and stared at a tree for hours, waiting for the leaves to change from green to yellow to golden brown and then fall on the ground, you would be disappointed. Even if you waited there for days, doing nothing more than watching the tree, you would not be able to partake in the drastic changes that happen over the course of the season. The only way to get the full experience of all that is changing within that tree is to go away for a while and do other things, then come back later. You have to give the season time to breathe change into life.

And perhaps the same could be true when you feel like you are stuck in a place of indiscernible seasons of the heart. When you feel like you feel the same way you did yesterday and you will feel the same tomorrow, perhaps, with practice and courage (and support if needed), you can go on and focus on other things. You can take note of how you feel today, and tomorrow, expecting that you may feel the same and not putting pressure on yourself to make drastic changes overnight. And then, a year from now, you'll be able to look back and see if there's a difference. And then, five years from now, you'll be able to look back on that year.

We may not be able to line up all of the nuances of each of our lives with winter, spring, summer, and fall, but perhaps what we can learn from the seasons is that change happens slowly. And even when we do start to notice the change and struggle to make sense of it, we can trust that even the process of trying to make sense of the change will take time, and that's okay. What matters is that we know that, even if it takes time to see it, we are not stuck here.

We are moving forward every day.

Change is happening all around and within.

May we continue to encounter grace for all the changes we face.

More in this week's series called "For a Season of Growth", only with a subscription in the Storyteller App.

More tomorrow…
Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols
@thestorytellerco
@morganharpernichols