It seems that much of life is spent in a state of floundering. Our footing feels… Unsure.
It can be disorienting. It’s hard to tell up from down, forward from backward.
The temptation is to grow impatient. To think that you can’t start living until you ‘arrive’ and your footing becomes sure again. Like maybe when you land that job, spouse, or house. Maybe when you get married or divorced or when the kid goes to kindergarten.
But the rub seems to be this…
We never arrive.
St. Augustine calls the Christian life a pilgrimage. A journey. We reach and strain for a satisfaction we can never find in the material world.
A majority of life is lived in liminal time. The in-between.
The good news is this…
Treasures are afoot in the floundering.
If we wait until the floundering ends, I’m afraid we’ll be waiting for a very long time. The other option is to lean into these liminal seasons. They shape and direct us in ways we can’t know but can only trust. Seeds grow beneath the murky ground under or wayward feet.
Flounder well, fellow traveler. Your footing is surer than you think.