Release

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Be strong and let your heart take courage,
   all you who wait for the Lord.  Psalm 31:24

As I maneuver the car into the parking spot in front of my house, I have to apply more caution. The thick ice that has formed into mounds in this spot has begun to melt. Finally. But as it does it slowly reveals the damage it has worked on the pavement, leaving large potholes in its wake.

Driving in my neighborhood has become a kind of Olympic sport: pothole slalom. No street can be simply navigated. Rather, we drivers must adroitly swerve around these hazards and make way for one another as the mounds of frozen snow that still encase some parked cars turn streets into curvy single lanes. And often we wait.

We wait for spring. We wait for warmer weather. We wait for the snow and ice to melt. We wait to see what will be uncovered. We wait to be released, to be free to navigate familiar ways with ease and confidence.

I yearn for the same release for myself. That a way might be opened within me and around me. That I can shed the constraints of doubt and anxiety and old habits that keep my head down and my shoulders hunched. That I might open myself once again to the light and life and love of God and be free.

copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2014

Image credit: virynja / 123RF Stock Photo