Between

Caught between the promise and the things I know.
-Sara Groves

Changes are coming. We have been so busy that we haven't had time to really think about it all.  We closed on our new house on the 1st.  We have spent the week (with lots of help from friends and family) going back and forth...bringing some stuff, cleaning, painting, electrical projects, etc.  The back and forth has given me lots more quiet time in the car than I'm used to.  It has given me time to think, to get excited, to freak out, to anticipate, to dwell in this time of hanging on to our old life, but also looking forward to the new one that is just around the corner.

My friend Melissa sent me this link that gives a name to this in between time: zwischen, which literally means between.
http://www.mothering.com/community/a/the-last-days-of-pregnancy-a-place-of-in-between

In my alone time in the car I have been playing one of my iPod mixes, titled "Old School Mix 2," on shuffle during these car trips.  (The songs take me back to college, hence the "old school" in the title.)  One of the songs that keeps coming up is Sara Groves' "Painting Pictures of Egypt."  This song has always been my go-to song for when big changes are happening in my life.  So it couldn't be more appropriate that I keep hearing it during my iPod playlist shuffle.

It is a song based on the story in the Bible about the experience of the Hebrew people leaving slavery in Egypt and heading on an arduous journey to God's promised land.  But it transcends time and applies to anyone who is about to make a change in their life.  That is why I love it.  Her lyrics are beautiful.

Painting Pictures of Egypt
By: Sara Groves

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

BRIDGE:
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?

If you'd like to hear the song (it is beautiful!) here is the video for it.




So I will spend the next who-knows-how-long listening to this song on repeat as I sit in zwischen and try to let go of the things I know and look forward to the exciting but unknown promise of what is to come.