Sometimes the middle is the hardest part. You've pushed off the shore into uncertain waters and you can't quite see the other side that you know is there. The nervousness of something new has faded and the excitedment of arrival to the other side hasn't quite set in yet. You're just out there, in the middle. Between the beginning and the end, the start and the finish.

You start wonder if you made a mistake or read the map wrong. Maybe you should be sailing faster or closer to the shore. Maybe you should have reached the other side by now or turned back. Maybe a unexpected storm is approaching and you think to yourself, "This wasn't supposed to happen." You feel like you're blown off course or worse, just drifting. 

That endless drift of nights and days where you do everything you should, everything that expected of you. You check your map and compass over and over and over because surely you should have arrived by now. At night you search the stars and at daylight vainly search for the shoreline. And you start to wonder, "Is this all there is? Is this the grand adventure?" 

The middle isn't always soft and gooey like that middle brownie with no edges. It isn't always comfy like stretching out in the middle of a big, soft bed. It isn't always exciting like the middle of a good book. Sometimes it's hard, and cold, and lonely, and boring. Sometimes you wish you never started. Sometimes you scream at the sky in frustration over your slow progress, eyes burning from endlessly searching for the end. 

But the middle is where it matters. The middle where your story, your journey, takes shape. The middle is where your character is revealed. Hold on to that hope that you set sail with. Find that excitement of arrival in a new place and keep it before you. Instead of searching for the shoreline, search for joy in the everyday. Embrace the growth of this midpoint. Choose faithfulness in the small hard things. Everything has a beginning and an end; the middle doesn't last forever.

Hold on to hope.