In this Day, we go forth…Not Easily
In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge. Psalm 71:1
Dear beloved children of God, each of you, all of you, all of us: How do we do this time? HOW DO WE DO THIS?
How do we do this? How do we go through these hard times, lament times, times “without.”
How do we do without so much of what we feel so deeply.
Loss, of so Much.
How? Not Easily ! That may be the one thing we know, for certain.
From our own life experience. From our ancestors. From Scripture. From history.
We learn and learn: Life, even in the easy times, is hard.
And now? In this hard time? When hard times are harder?
How do we go through these moments, this time?
How do we go through the loss of worship with a congregation around us?
The loss of school-in-person; play-time, in-person; caring, in-person.
Loss of deciding today, where to go on this day…
Loss of confidence that where we go is safe to go…
Loss of embrace—loss of touching hand to hand, face to face of a long-beloved one.
How do we go through the loss of knowing in today, tomorrow, that we know not tomorrow?
HOW? NOT EASILY.
Pretending easy-ness only threatens us more, for, inside us, we know truth.
And the truth is: this time is truly a hard time. It is far from the first hard time in human history, or in the billions of years of the earth’s geology and history, but it is, for us, a deeply hard time.
How do we do this? How do we go through this when we can’t easily see the others of our “us” except on tiny screens that seem to help, but that also increase longing.
Jesus taught, teaches, shows us: times of despair and fear and worry are not gone through easily.
They weren’t for him, can’t be for us, for we are created in God’s image and are created part of God’s natural world where paths of death and life, sickness and health, meet.
Now, in our hard time, we do as Jesus did: take refuge in our Lord.
The truth? We still shudder in fear, and still, God speaks to us, in Loving voice, Calm and Strong: “Beloved, hear: I who form all: AM. I AM, and AM beneath all; above all; within all, surround all.”
Dearly beloved community reaching wide across the nation and world, people of many seasons, many addresses, many worship ways…How do we go through this time?
How? With one another but far more, with Christ, alongside.
With God, our Refuge. With the Spirit of God reminding us: for all humans, all creation, there are times of troubles and fear far-reaching.
Yet in the midst of these times, we have Refuge that surpasses our understanding.
In each next moment, Jesus surrounds; in the goodness of one another, we see God’s presence, perhaps most in hardest times. How do we go through this time?
Not easily, but with one another, and with Christ, alongside. And, again, again, again, morning by morning: God’s gifts of sunrise time, sunset time, full-moon time, star-filled skies time…thanks be to God.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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