Today, let’s remember that true peace lies, not in resolutions, but in our acceptance of the unresolved.
Because the truth is, no matter how much we may wish it would, life never resolves. It evolves.
Like the seasons themselves, our lives are never static, ever-changing, always in the process of becoming something new. This transformation can be uncomfortable. We want assurances. Guarantees. Answers to our burning questions. We want to be content without ever having to stretch. We want to feel joy with no threat of pain or risk. We want to know happiness without having to also know the crippling fear that it may one day slip through our fingers.
Our entire existence is riddled with an uncertainty that often feels unbearable. And yet, it is this very uncertainty that is most necessary for our growth.
Why?
Because the flip-side of uncertainty is hope: our natural inclination to strive. The force that pushes us to keep going. The nagging sense we have, no matter how stifled it may be, that all the challenges and struggles and pain we experience are for something. That it all matters.
Hope reminds us that the beauty is in the becoming.
So today, let’s make space for our questions– but let’s also promise ourselves that our happiness won’t be contingent on the answers. Let’s remember that it’s natural to experience faith and fear simultaneously. That it’s possible to experience joy and sorrow at the same time. That it’s a common symptom of the human condition that “even in laughter the heart may ache” (Prov. 14:13).
And let’s remember that it is not only possible to feel content in the face of uncertainty– it’s absolutely necessary that we learn how to do so.
Because the only certainty in life is death. Resolutions are endings, after all. And to live is to remind ourselves again and again, day after day, that what we want more than anything else is to remain unfinished.
Even if only because it’s better than the alternative.