Jessica Gazzola

photo by Dana Ross Martin

An ending and a beginning overlapped for me recently.

In the same weekend that I said “good-bye” to a dear friend who moved to another state, I joined a new retreat ministry and blessed the threshold of a new beginning.

Experiencing these two events back-to-back felt, at first, like emotional whiplash.  Until I paused to check in with my insides.   Both the grief of loss and the anxiety of stepping into an unknown were carving a canyon in my heart.

Within the ending held a beginning – for life to reshape itself into a new form.  Within the beginning held and ending – leaving behind the days of stay-at-home parenting.  The moments leading up to these beginnings/endings had my stomach churning.  Now, having moved through them, the river of change seems to have created some space, a kind of potent emptiness.  Space for more life…