I’m stuck. Stuck is obviously not a place you or I want to be, but I can’t help but think about how appropriate timing my realization of my stuck-ness is.

I’m at a cross between the darkness and the waiting for the light to reappear.

I’m at this in-between of not wanting to do anything but sleep (and sleep well, pretty please?!), and wanting to do all of the things. At once. It’s overwhelming how much my desire wanes, yet my schedule keeps piling up.

I’m at a place where I feel my depression slowly creeping back in, and desperately fighting the numbness and darkness to stay out. I want to feel things, but not the sad things. And yet, those are the things I need to feel the most.

I’m lost about figuring out what I’m doing next post-grad yet desperately ready for graduation to hurry up and get here. I still have no clue about the future yet I’m sick of being in the present.

This in-between place I’m in is real. And right now, it kind of sucks.

I feel like all of these things fall into this juxtaposition of Good Friday and Holy Saturday– the dark, sad, excruciating lostlessness of Good Friday, and the longing, quiet, hard Saturday that follows. There’s a lot of crossroads, a lot of in-betweens that we have to go through to get from the crucifixion to the resurrection.

Truthfully I never thought about Saturday as much up until the past few years. I always go straight from the sadness of Good Friday to the celebration of the Resurrection. Don’t want to stay in the sadness for too long- cause Sunday’s coming, right?

It absolutely is- don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t happen instantly.

Just like my depression and anxiety aren’t going to get better overnight.

Or like I’m not going to figure out my life plans suddenly just because I want to.

Or that I’m not going to get to graduation any faster by not focusing on the work I have to get through before.

I know that yesterday and tomorrow have a lot of weight and importance. But today, the holy Saturday in between, does too.

Saturday is there to remind us of the weight of the in-between. What it means to wait– and sit in the waiting– for what happens next. It’s a day of feeling the sadness and the absence from yesterday, and anticipating tomorrow and the celebration of the resurrection.

While we can’t have a resurrection without a death, we can’t have the resurrection on our time table, either.

We have to wait. We have to be reminded of the absence– of why we need the resurrection.

We need the in-between to lead us to the celebration.

I’m not a very patient person, so this waiting in the in-between stage of my life is hard. I can’t stand it, truthfully. I thought I’d have it all together by now. I want to know more. I want to feel more (and better). I don’t want to be swallowed up by numbness and no desire to do anything. And yet, this is where I am right now.

So I wait.

Just as we waited to find the tomb empty, we wait on God’s next moves: painstakingly aware of the absence, impatient about the details, and yet, totally in awe and faith that He will move– both in resurrection and in life.

I have faith that just as He rose, He will rise in my life. He’ll deliver me from this season. He’ll provide answers and direction where it feels direction-less right now. I know this for sure– He hasn’t let me down thus far.

I just have to wait.

—

On our last day in Cozumel, I sat outside on the porch of our rental house, taking it all in. Thinking about the kids and saying goodbye the night before and letting myself feel the sadness and weight of it all.  Soon I started to cry, knowing our journey back to Nashville was impending in a few short hours. In between my tears, I managed a prayer: God, I’m not ready. I’m not ready to go back, to leave this place. But I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.

That prayer got me through. it’s still getting me through, a week after returning to reality. I’m in this in-between and I’m not ready for what’s ahead, though I’m ready to leave what I have now. But I trust Him. I trust Him. I trust Him. I’m hoping the more I say it, the more I’ll believe it.

I’m clinging to the words of Jesus in one of my favorite verses (and one of my favorite stories):

 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (NIV). 

As much as I hate waiting for this season to end, for me to feel better, and for what’s next to be somewhat figured out, I’m reminded by this day of waiting that I’ll learn and understand. It may not be when I want it, but the waiting, the in-between, this season is important too.

I will understand someday. But until that day, I wait in the in-between, on this Holy Saturday– quietly, anxiously anticipating the stone rolling from the tomb.