It’s been a long few months of waiting on the shore, but on Saturday we leave our precious Chester and set out on the open sea for Hattersley.
God’s kindness has been all over everything the last few months: the swollen gratitude we feel for everyone we love in Chester, the exciting little stories appearing for the next chapter of our life, God reassuring us again and again.
But despite confidence that God is calling us out on this adventure, I’m still a riot of feelings - terror and anxiety and stress crash into the excitement and joy and the colours merge and overwhelm me.
So what do I do with these less enjoyable feelings? What does the last few years of learning to be slow, to hold my emotions with Jesus tender care, to listen to the voice of my father, lead me to do?
Correct. Sit on my phone and look at light fittings.
Surprisingly, this does not help. In the gaps of unknown, as I ignore them, the blanks slowly fill themselves in with scary stories and I am left worse off than before.
Then last week, ever so gently, I’ve felt the finger of God under my chin as he lifts my eyes, back up to his face, and I’ve remembered that the best way to invest in an uncertain future, is by listening to a certain voice.
This is what will carry us through. A thousand tiny moments with you.
I wrote a mini-story about it.
Prayer from a rooftop on a cliff in a gale
Well God, this seemed like a better idea before I climbed up here to take your hand. Before the wind began to blow in earnest, barrelling great lungfuls of salt air into my chest. I knew it would be an adventure. But I feel exposed.
“Come join me,” you said, “Further up, come further in.”
And I thought I could do this, but now I’m not sure. My feet do not feel as reliable as before. Rooftop tiles, slick with rain, are not a good idea for a floor.
From here I can see the smudged horizon. Breath taking, as I knew it would be. But it’s taken it completely and I’m struggling to breathe at all. All I want to do is shut my eyes and flatten myself to the chimney, til my knuckles turn white and it’s over.
The rocks that sharpen the cliff edge seem to draw me forward to the edge. I could fall.
I could fall.
My knees buckle and I let go. I need both hands to clutch at the tiles. Surely the safest thing is to make myself as small as I can be, as small and hidden as humanly possible so the storm cannot find me and the wind has nothing to push.
It’s only in that moment, as my fingers press against wet terracotta that I realise your hand was the realest thing here.
Moments stretch and the howling wind swoops fiercely from the horizon, over the gulls, tossing them out of the way to batter my ear drums and my closed eyelids.
A voice is whispering though, a single thread in the shriek of the storm.
“Stay with me, precious child. Stay with me.”
I grasp again for your fingers.
Long moments pass til I find them again. But I find them. You will always be found.
You pull me to my feet.
And the tiles are just as slippery and my hair is plastered to my face with the spray of the sea, but my eyes...my eyes are open.
Across the sea the light begins to break. I don’t want to miss this. I refuse to miss this.
I hold on tight and lean into the wind.
Would love to hear from you. Please do share if it's helpful.
See you on the other side.
Katy x
© Words, images and video, Katy Hollamby 2023
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