As we head into the holidays, I seem to have more on my heart and my mind than in years past. I think about how, with each setting of the sun, something changes... how so much is different than in the days when I was younger. Some changes look like progress as defined by a modern society while some changes look like reasons to find offense with anything we think is wrong in our world (and when I say "world", I mainly mean the one that revolves around us as individuals). And then there's this thing about time where I find myself older than I was... having experienced life differently than during the days of my youth. I'm also looking ahead at the momentum of forward motion that is sure to come as long as I'm still on this earth. I try not to hang out in my head too long because it's where I feel the tension between how things are and how they ought to be, but as we head into the holidays, I hope I will remember...
This life is breathtakingly beautiful and immensely ugly at the same time. Tears of joy can quickly be replaced by tears of sorrow and sadness and it's sometimes hard to laugh while you cry while letting them both be genuine expressions of how you feel. But this is what it is to live in a world that is at odds with itself. The truth is... life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful. And that's a good thing because it will never be perfect on this side of heaven. As we head into the holidays, I hope I will remember...
Life is hard but that is hardly a reason for me not to see the beauty around me. Dreams change. Plans fail. Seasons run from one to the next, each with its unique purpose. I don't want to hang out on the hard stuff so long that it isn't useful for preparing me for what is next. I also don't want to revel in reliving the moments I wish would last a lifetime because... they won't. Hanging on to what we think are the high points of our history can cause us to miss the even higher summits we are set to experience. As we head into the holidays, I guess what I'm trying to say is...
Both peace and conflict can coexist in the same time/space dimension and I don't want to miss any of what He has for me in these moments. I can't let anything that is past cancel what I am supposed to learn from it. If I do, then the conflict I feel between who I know I am and who I am called to be will not have created the change within me that will lead me where He wants me to go. And the peace... in the chaos that clamors in my heart... is the kind that only He can bring through the conflict you feel when you realize you can't save yourself. As we head into the holidays, I pray we would be purposeful in remembering to...
Look past our offenses and the ways we feel wronged... at least long enough to sit together and share a moment in this beautiful, ugly, joyful, saddening world that is groaning for the return of the only One who can make things right. "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). During this season, let us be thankful while we continue to do the other things we feel we should. Let the purpose of our planting be for the sowing of our souls an inheritance that cannot be taken away... the inheritance that, one day, we will receive when we see Him.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time." - Ecclesiastes 3:11
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