“23 But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions,
and since I have been longing for many years to visit you,”
(Romans 15:23)
We continue on in Romans. I opened to the next verse after a cup of coffee with my son who is visiting after the death of his father and we had been chatting about the mysteriousness of life and faith. My husband had often said, “Faith can be seen as mystery or management.” He always opted for mystery and the unseen hand of God in his life. C.S. Lewis in his last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, had ended with the four children holding hands and flying “higher up and higher in” as a way to talk about life after death. I like that and it resonated with Romans 15:23, “But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions…”
Not all deaths resonate with this verse, perhaps, but watching my husband decline inch by inch and be limited to a wheelchair that his frame was not comfortable in and his body could not communicate with my reality, I wonder if there was not a sense that “there is no more place for me to work in these regions,” “higher up and higher in” to the mysterious of our faith.
Death is not the only barrier that presents this reality. All transitions embrace the mystery of the unknown future that is in God’s hands and a farewell to the known past – starting school or college, marriage, child birth, a new job or a move to a new location. Paul was looking forward to his next adventure. Perhaps today you are facing a transition. It might only be the transition from yesterday to today and the realization of needing to finish or tie up loose ends from yesterday or tackle a new task for today but I find it comforting to consider life an adventure with embracing the mysteriousness of our God and not a managing the details of our life. I pray you have great blessing as you embrace you situation knowing God is partnering with you. Blessings.
On the Way to Wonder 