Between What Was and What Is Becoming

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
Tonight, I found myself sitting in reflection.
Not forced.
Not structured.
Just there.
There are moments in life where you can feel a shift happening before anything has fully changed. You are still standing in the same places. Still moving through familiar routines. Still waking up to the same surroundings. And yet, something within you knows you are not staying here.
This week feels like that.
I am finishing up my time at Woolworths.
And next week, I step into a new role at Gold Coast University Hospital.
On paper, it is simple. A transition from one job to another. A change in environment. A new routine. But internally, it feels like something deeper is taking place. Not just a change in work, but a shift in direction.
And tonight, I am sitting with that.
I feel I am in that anxious in between space, but even in that space there is beauty and possibilities.
Woolworths Was Never Just a Job
It would be easy to reduce Woolworths to a chapter that is closing. To look at it purely as something temporary, something that served a purpose and is now behind me.
But that would not be true.
Woolworths has been a launch pad.
Not in the obvious, external sense, but in the way it quietly shaped something within me. It gave me structure when I needed it. Consistency when things felt uncertain. A place to show up, even on the days where I did not feel like I had much to give.
There is something powerful about that.
Because sometimes growth does not come through dramatic breakthroughs or visible progress. Sometimes it comes through repetition. Through showing up. Through doing what is in front of you, even when it feels small.
And looking back now, I can see that.
There were shifts happening in me during that time, shifts I did not fully understand while I was in them. Discipline. Patience. Perspective. Even just learning how to carry myself through ordinary days.
Woolworths held that space for me.
And I do not take that lightly.
The Quiet Tension of Transition
There is a tension that comes with transition.
It is not loud. It is not overwhelming in an obvious way. But it is there.
You feel it in the in between.
When you are no longer fully where you were, but you have not fully stepped into what is next.
That space can feel uncomfortable.
Because it lacks clarity. It lacks familiarity. It does not offer you something solid to stand on yet. And for a lot of us, that is where anxiety creeps in. Not because something is wrong, but because something is changing.
I can feel that right now.
There is excitement.
There is anticipation.
But there is also a kind of quiet uncertainty.
And I feel I am in that anxious in between space, but even in that space there is beauty and possibilities.
And I am learning to be okay with that.
Being Okay With the Uncomfortable
There was a time in my life where discomfort felt like something to avoid.
If something did not feel clear, I would question it.
If something did not feel stable, I would resist it.
If something stretched me beyond what I understood, I would pull back.
But I am starting to see it differently now.
Discomfort is not always a sign that something is wrong.
Sometimes it is a sign that something is growing.
That you are being stretched beyond what you have known.
That you are stepping into something unfamiliar.
That you are moving forward, even if you do not have the full picture yet.
And maybe that is where trust begins.
Not in having everything mapped out.
Not in feeling completely certain.
But in choosing to keep walking anyway.
Trusting God’s Leading
This is the part I keep coming back to.
Because if I am honest, I do not have everything figured out. I do not know exactly what this next season will look like. I do not know how everything will unfold once I step into this new role.
But I do know this.
God has been present in every step leading up to this.
In the moments I understood.
And in the moments I did not.
In the open doors.
And in the closed ones.
In the quiet seasons.
And in the ones that felt full.
Looking back, I can trace it.
Not perfectly. Not in a way that explains everything. But enough to know that I have not been moving on my own.
And if that is true for where I have been, then it has to be true for where I am going.
Trusting the Process
There is something about the word process that we often overlook.
We want outcomes.
We want clarity.
We want resolution.
But most of life does not unfold that way.
It unfolds step by step.
Layer by layer.
Moment by moment.
And sometimes, the process itself is where the real work is happening.
Not in the result.
Not in the arrival.
But in what is being formed within you along the way.
I can feel that right now.
This transition is not just about changing environments. It is about continuing to become someone who can carry what is ahead.
And that does not happen overnight.
It happens through process.
God at the Centre
If there is one thing I am holding onto in this moment, it is this.
God is central.
Not just in the big decisions.
Not just in the defining moments.
But in the quiet transitions.
In the in between spaces.
In the uncertainty.
In the process itself.
It is easy to acknowledge God when things are clear. When doors open. When everything lines up in a way that makes sense.
But what about when it does not?
What about when you are standing between what was and what is becoming?
That is where faith becomes real.
Not theoretical.
Not conceptual.
But lived.
Stepping Forward
Next week, I step into something new.
A new environment.
A new rhythm.
A new set of responsibilities.
And I do not need to have it all figured out before I arrive there.
I just need to step forward.
With awareness.
With honesty.
With trust.
Holding Both Gratitude and Expectation
As I move through this week, I find myself holding two things at once.
Gratitude for what has been.
And expectation for what is coming.
Woolworths was never wasted time.
It was part of the path.
And what is ahead is not something I need to fear.
It is something I am being led into.
Final Reflection
Tonight is not about having answers.
It is about recognising the moment.
A quiet transition.
A subtle shift.
A step forward that has not fully landed yet.
And maybe that is enough.
To be here.
To be aware.
To trust.
Even without seeing the full picture.
Because if there is one thing I am learning, it is this.
You do not need to understand everything to keep moving forward.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

Comments

Post a Comment

From the Fire

A Week Ignited: Brotherhood, Openness, and the Quiet Work of God

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
Wow  what a start to the week. I’ve been sitting with Saturday for a couple of days now, letting it settle, letting it breathe, letting it speak in its own way before rushing to put words around it. There are moments in life that are better written immediately, while the emotion is still raw and close to the surface. But there are other moments that need time time to process, time to reflect, time to understand what was actually taking place beneath what we could see. Saturday felt like one of those moments. Kings Church connect group at Paradise Point . A simple setting on the surface. A lunchtime barbecue. Men gathered. Food cooking. Conversations unfolding. Nothing overly structured. Nothing forced. But what took place in that space carried far more weight than what it looked like from the outside. And I think that’s what has stayed with me the most. Letting the Moment Settle I was going to write on Saturday. I really was. I felt it stirring in me as I left. Tha...
Continue Reading →

Writing From the Middle of It

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
As I finished up my second last week at Woolworths before stepping into a new season at the Gold Coast University Hospital , on the eve of Good Friday , I found myself in a strange kind of space. Not quiet. Not chaotic. Just full. It’s a wild thing how even on days where your mind is locked into movement goals, timelines, responsibilities, things that need to be done  something deeper can still cut through all of it without warning. You can be thinking about shifts, routines, what’s next, what needs to be done… and then something from another season just breaks through the surface like it was never gone. That’s what happened to me. As I was walking into work, just moving through what should have been a normal moment, a memory came flooding back. Not gently. Not subtly. It hit with weight. It took me straight back to a season I haven’t fully stepped away from, even if time says I should have by now. A season where I was writing my first book — Kissed by Death  My journey to fi...
Continue Reading →

An Unsent Beginning

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
 Some words aren’t written to be understood. They’re written because they refuse to stay inside. This space exists for the things I never sent , the thoughts that didn’t belong in conversations, the prayers that didn’t resolve into answers, the moments that were too honest for performance. I’ve learned that not everything needs a destination. Some things just need a place to rest. What you’ll find here won’t be lessons or instructions. There will be no tidy endings, no motivational arcs, no promise that pain always makes sense in hindsight . There will be faith, but not the polished kind. There will be struggle, spoken quietly. There will be days when hope is loud and days when it barely whispers. This is not a journal written for an audience. It’s a record of what survives the day. What remains after the noise has burned off. What’s left when honesty is the only option. If these words resonate, that’s enough. If they don’t, that’s also enough. Some letters are never sent because t...
Continue Reading →

Christ in the Middle of the Fire

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
This week has been a beautiful mixture of struggling with past wounds and patterns and deep revelations from Christ. Some weeks feel heavy in ways that are difficult to explain. Old memories surface, patterns you thought you had already buried rise again, and you begin to see parts of yourself that you wish were not still there. But at the very same time, there are also moments where Christ reveals something deeper, something clearer, something that steadies the soul in the middle of the struggle. That is what this week has felt like. A strange but beautiful tension between wrestling with the past and experiencing fresh understanding of who Jesus really is. Bible college yesterday became a powerful foundation for the entire week. As I sat among other students and opened the Scriptures together, I felt that quiet sense again that God is forming something in my life. The topic that anchored our study was the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians . The book of Ephesians is one of those...
Continue Reading →

Learning to Think Deeply About God in the Middle of Life

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
 There are seasons in life when the mind begins to slow down and look more carefully at the deeper things. Not because everything is suddenly calm. Not because all of life’s questions have been answered. But because something inside you begins to hunger for understanding in a deeper way than before. That is the season I find myself in right now. For much of my life, faith was something deeply personal. It was something I clung to in moments of pain, moments of fear, moments when life felt as though it could collapse beneath the weight of circumstances. Faith was not theoretical for me. It was survival. It was the quiet anchor that kept me steady when everything else felt unstable. But over time, something else began to grow alongside that faith. A desire to understand. Not simply to believe that God is real, but to think deeply about who He is. To explore the theology behind the truths that had already become real in my life through experience. That desire has led me into a season ...
Continue Reading →