Every transition, no matter how exciting, comes with a shadow side. We moved into our new house last week. I have been reveling in finally having some of the little things I’ve wanted for years: a wood stove, a big backyard full of nature, walls we can paint.

I’ve been dreaming so hard about having a place of our own that I forgot to expect the trough that comes with every transition, that place suspended between what was before and what hasn’t happened yet.

We’re out of the old place, but we’re not yet settled in the new place. My sensitive heart has a lot of questions about what’s coming.

Human minds hate unknowns and in-betweens. Mine habitually fills in uncertainty with self-criticism and worst-case what-ifs. I forget—every time—about the miracle and mercy of what I don’t know and can’t predict.

When you find yourself in an in-between place, don’t catastrophize. Now’s the time for all your optimism. The in-between place is the true home of faith: the place where we put down our nervous urge to control and trust that it’s all happening exactly as it should, because it is.

Just a little note for myself and for you.