A Little Step Into the Big Unknown

There comes a time in life, not just once, but often, when you find yourself standing in the hallway with your coat on and your hand on the doorknob, heart thudding, unsure whether to step out into the wind or go back inside and pretend the world isn’t changing. Maybe it’s moving on from a good job, or the last kid leaving home, or the doctor using the word “cholesterol” with too much seriousness. Maybe it’s waking up one morning and realizing you’re not who you used to be, and feel a tug on the insides to bring something new to the world that has rested in your heart for longer than it should’ve.

There’s no easy way to walk into the next chapter. Even if it’s a happy one, new love, fresh purpose, the dream house with a working dishwasher, it still means leaving behind the familiar wallpaper of the life we knew. And we humans are funny about that. We’ll hold on to cracked mugs and jobs we’ve outgrown and relationships that sit like old couches in our hearts, sagging in the middle but too sentimental to throw out.

But oh, how wondrous it can be when we take the step anyway. When we walk into the new town, or finally say yes to the thing we’ve feared, or sit quietly long enough to hear God whisper, “You’re not finished yet.” The world opens in small, bright ways: a kind stranger at the checkout line, a sunrise that feels personally scheduled, a letter in the mail when you thought no one remembered. We find that we are braver than we knew. That we have more chapters in us. That grace, like good soup, keeps showing up when we least expect it, and warms us from the inside.

Still, let’s not pretend it isn’t scary. Change always has a little tremble to it, like a child’s hand reaching for a light switch in the dark. But we do it anyway. We trim the hedges, we pack the boxes, we walk our children down the aisle or into the kindergarten classroom. We walk ourselves into the great unknown, and we do it with hearts quivering but heads held high.

Because underneath it all, we suspect something is waiting for us, something kind and meaningful and maybe even beautiful. So we take the step. We open the door. And we trust, as all brave souls everywhere do, that there’s purpose on the other side.