It’s a strange time. When you have one foot in one place, and the other foot in another, and your heart feels like it’s divided in two.

Living fully in the present when you’re in the midst of transition is hard. You feel like there’s this sort of chasm in between here and there where you can’t rest or feel at peace. Half of you is holding to the familiar and beloved, half of you is reaching for the good things to come. You yo-yo relentlessly between the two positions, unable to make a solid landing on either.

I have struggled to write about it, because I like to write reflectively instead of processing out loud in the moment. This is raw stuff, still in process. There is so much on my mind and to-do list right now. But, in the midst of this overwhelming project of trying to somehow wrap up ten years’ accumulation of belongings here into two tidy packages of taking or leaving, all the while trying to say goodbye to people and places we love dearly, I’m still taking pictures. It’s something soothing that I can do that doesn’t require more mental or emotional energy, this composing of images within a frame and capturing moments of time in pixels. Taking time, even just a minute or two, to savor the beauty around me is such a balm for my soul. It reminds me of the things that are solid and don’t change, like the rhythms of nature, the changing of the seasons—and the God who created it all and remains faithful even when everything else feels like it’s in upheaval.

“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” (Lamentations 3:21-25)