Before the Edges: Finding God in the Formless Place

A reflection on Genesis 1:2 and the space between what was and what has not yet come

We are a people obsessed with edges.

We want the sharp line of a definition: this is this.
We want the safety of a role: I am a spouse, a parent, a professional.
We want a sequence we can follow: first this, then that, then the next.

When those edges disappear, we don’t call it neutral.
We call it a problem.

We rush to replace them. A new purpose. A new identity. Something to hold.

But the story of creation does not begin with clarity.

It begins here:

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)

Before anything had edges.
Before anything had a name.
Before there was a “next.”

There was formlessness.

It is not a poetic place when you are inside it.
It is disorienting.

There is no clear self, no clear future, no clear instruction.
You wake up, and there is nothing telling you who you are supposed to be that day.

Abigail is there now.

For sixty years, her life had edges.
Wife.
Partner.
The one who made dinner.
The one who hurried home.

Have to get back before Jim.
Make sure he’s okay.

Before all of that, there was a coffee shop. Teenagers with a jukebox, a shared drink, a beginning that didn’t know yet what it would become. She can still see him there if she lets herself—before the roles, before the years shaped them into something steady.

At the end, in the hospice room, the music came back. A familiar song. His eyes were open, but not fully there. He looked at her without recognition.

But she still knew him.
She could still see the boy from the coffee shop.

And now he is gone.

Not in theory. Not in a way that resolves.
Gone in the way that removes the outline of a life.

There is no dinner to cook, no one to hurry home to, no check-in to make.
The role didn’t shift.

It disappeared.

She says she feels like she’s back at the beginning.
But not the hopeful kind people talk about.
The other kind.
The one without shape.

People try to help.

“You’ll find a new purpose.”
“This is just a new chapter.”

But she is not standing at the start of something new.
She is standing where something ended—and nothing has formed yet to take its place.

That space in between.

She still drives by the coffee shop.
She doesn’t always go in.
She just circles it. Stays near it.

Not because it fixes anything.
Because it’s as close as she can get to a life that had edges.

I recognize this place more than I want to admit.
The place where something ends, and nothing steps forward to replace it.

Where the question isn’t “What’s next?”
It’s “How do I live here?”

“I don’t know how to live outside of him.”

She says it plainly.
No theology. No framing.

“I miss him. I miss his smell. I miss his voice. I miss reading the Bible with him every night. Without fail.”
“And now it’s quiet.”

Formless.
Empty.
Darkness over the surface of the deep.

We are taught to move quickly through places like this.
To find meaning. To assign purpose. To get back to something that has edges.

But the text does not rush.

God does not arrive later, once things are structured.
God is already there.

The Spirit was hovering.
Not fixing.
Not speaking.
Not drawing lines.
Hovering over the deep.

Abigail is hovering too.

Around the coffee shop.
Around a life she cannot step back into.
Around a self that has not taken shape again.

Not absent.
Not resolved.

Just… there.

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There are seasons where nothing new is being made yet.
No edges.
No clarity.
No instruction.

Only the deep.
Only the dark.
Only the surface holding.

And the Spirit of God,
hovering.