I’ve been thinking about bridges lately.
Most of us think a bridge exists simply to get us from one side to the other.
We focus on where we started.
Or where we’re hoping to arrive.
But perhaps the bridge itself is where the real work happens.
Because no one crosses a meaningful bridge unchanged.
Every crossing asks something of us.
It asks us to loosen our grip on what no longer belongs to the next chapter.
It asks us to trust ground we have not yet reached.
And if we are paying attention, it quietly entrusts something new to us before our feet touch the other side.
Looking back over this month, I realize the stories were never really about a harvested field…
or a chapel window…
or a quiet evening walk.
They were about what those moments left within me.
Every community I have accompanied…
Every sacred conversation…
Every goodbye…
Every unexpected glimpse of beauty…
has asked me to leave something behind.
And every one of them has entrusted something to carry forward.
Perhaps that is why some places never really leave us.
They have become part of who we are.
I’ve been wondering…
As I step off this season’s bridge, what am I being invited to leave behind… and what has this crossing entrusted to me to carry forward?