The memories from the past year are flooding my mind as of late. Not many of them are pleasant. Many of my thoughts linger on death and loss and endings. I find myself straining to look beyond this year, seeking the horizon of the next. I am looking for hope. I know that with the new year comes another 365 days and the possibilities of all the good that can come, and the hope that does not disappoint us.
It is somewhat miraculous that hope keeps coming year after year. I am amazed that my heart continues to believe in an ancient refrain,”I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Why have I not become bitter or angry or reclusive? Could it be the gifts in my life, which are plenty, my children, a loving husband, and a God fearing home? But these gifts cannot ward off the life daunting fears this world can bring.
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| About to listen to the Christmas Choral Concert, ending with the Hallelujah chorus. |
There must be something more. These dissonant notes keep playing in my mind yet I find myself comforting others through my grief. Where does the strength come from to move past my own loss and feel the needs of another? The unsaid good-byes, the unanswered questions, the unending pain that hides behind the quiet moments of my days have not led me to despair. And I find myself perplexed as to how this inner calm has come.
I have been held by a strength not of this world that has come to dwell in me. The Savior of the world came to dwell with men to meet a dire need. He is more than the fulfillment of all our hopes and fears. He spoke and my world began. And He alone holds my world together still by the word of His death defeating, life bringing power. He is the One who will finish all that is left undone.
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| Chris and I finding a moment of joy and peace in the form of a song. |
When the other worldly announcement of a god become flesh came bursting through the night sky, the world paused, and the lowly were lifted up. Sorrowful hearts stopped their searching. An answer had come to the cries for hope in a way that none could imagine.
The god man come to dwell with us, to taste our pain and know our sorrows, to feel the attacks and taunts so common to us all. But, the pain and death and loss of this world did not end on the night he came. The assault upon our souls continued then and it continues now. But, now! There is a breaking through. The end had not yet come, but the beginning of the end was made manifest.
And that is where we are. We are not at the end, but we are not at the beginning. We follow the path of the Coming One who has come and will come again. As our weary, cross carrying souls search for firm footing, we move from strength to strength through the Valley of Bacca. Finding that we are lost and orphaned no longer, our sadness turns into springs of life.
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| Christmas Eve and all of the anticipation that it brings. |
All of the sadness that my mind could rehearse is overcome by a coming grace. In this hope of future grace I am grounded in the here and now. I solider on, looking ahead to the joys and hopes that await me in an everlasting city, where my Savior forever pleads for me, before a throne of grace.
May all of your hopes that are yet unseen be fulfilled in Him,
Your Fellow Sojourner
I leave you with the observations of a girl from another time and place.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”~ C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian
