It’s been said that sometimes life is just so hard and difficult that we have to fall back into the comfort of all the love we’ve ever known to make it through. In some of life’s moments, to remember love shared and to find comfort in that love reaching through the years can be a great blessing.
I remember a visit I made with my mother many years ago, to a to a little house on Clover Street in Harlan, Kentucky, taking supper to a young family mourning the loss of husband and father. Three young children were gathered around their mother as she sat in her wheelchair. We talked and cried and prayed and ate, and the feeling of love we shared in those moments has stayed with me to this day.
Fast forward 40 some years, and I find myself offering words of comfort via zoom at a prayer service celebrating the life of one of those young children, now all grown up, with a beautiful family of his own. He died of Covid-19. As that young family was held in strong arms of love on that day long ago, so this young family, too, is held in that loving embrace, and will continue to be so held, from generation to generation.
One of my favorite hymns, “God of our Life, ” is the song of my heart in every season of life:
“God of our Life, through all the circling years, we trust in Thee,
In all the past, through all our hopes and fears, thy hand we see.
With each new day, when morning lifts the veil
we own thy mercies, Lord which never fail.”
I give thanks for the memory of love shared, reaching through the years, and for the grace to fall back into the comfort of all the love we’ve ever known to make it through difficult seasons of life. I thank God for my young friend’s life, for his new life in Christ, and for the faithful love of God through all the circling years, a love that never lets us go.
May our memories of love shared through the years bring hope, comfort and healing as we keep on keeping on, with God’s help!
Elizabeth
Each year I choose an Advent Devotional to use in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This year I’m using “Imagining a New World” by Terri Hord Owens. Advent’s scripture passages call us to imagine a new world, one free from fear, not one based on a “return to normal.” We are called to reflect on God’s vision for our world and how we might find the courage to imagine, permission to change, and freedom to fear no more.
In her introduction to the study, she writes: “2020 has been a challenging year in the life of our families, the church, and the world. The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes, sickness, death, and disruption unlike anything in most of our lifetimes. We simply could not have anticipated these circumstances, and as I write, we do not really know what the world will look like in Advent 2020. While we miss what was, we realize that the world will never be quite the same again. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are now called to imagine a new world, and who we will be as church in it … We must have the courage to imagine not only a new church for a new world, but how we as church could help to shape that world.”
As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s coming as a baby in Bethlehem, and his coming again as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we’re called to reflect on all the ways his coming will make all things new. A part of his making all things new is the change his coming brings to our lives. We must learn new ways of worshiping and serving, of connecting to and caring for one another; we must learn new ways of caring for ourselves, and call on God to help us imagine new ways to live out God’s love and witness for justice and peace from beyond the walls of our sanctuaries. As we welcome Immanuel, God-with-us” in our midst – “Who are we called to be? How are we called to love? What then are we called to do?”
Each Advent I turn to Cloth for the Cradle, a worship resource used by the Iona Community. This Advent Litany gives words of hope and promise:
Among the poor,
among the proud,
among the persecuted,
among the privileged,
Christ is coming,
CHRIST IS COMING TO MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.
With a gentle touch,
with an angry word,
with a clear conscience,
with burning love,
Christ is coming,
CHRIST IS COMING TO MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.
Within us,
without us,
among us,
before us,
in this place,
in every place,
for this time, for all time,
Christ is coming,
CHRIST IS COMING TO MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.
With that faithful promise, we begin our 2020 Advent journey, filled with the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ. May ours be a journey of hope and promise!
Elizabeth
This week we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving Day. As we grow older, this day takes on more meaning. We remember as children telling the story of the Pilgrims, of dressing up in school, or looking at pictures of a peaceful time between the Native Americans who brought gifts of food and friendship to the struggling community of European immigrants. When I taught First Grade, we always sang: “When the Pilgrims came to America, ‘twas cold as cold could be; They nearly froze that winter, but they said, at least we’re free; We’ll build a church and then a school, to God on high we’ll pray, and when their neighbors gathered round, they had Thanksgiving Day.” Little children in my class wore paper pilgrim hats and collars and some wore vests and feathered headbands – to be those neighbors gathered round!
Each year we reflect on the years of celebrating Thanksgiving Day in different homes and with different folks. The first time we had Thanksgiving after my Grandmother Shannon died, the day felt very different. I always remembered her coming to make the rolls, to be sure they were done to perfection! My own children speak with love and longing about Thanksgiving dinners at their Nana’s house. We might even remember a time we helped to serve a community meal to strangers and persons off the streets. All the ones we’ve ever shared this meal with become our communion of saints at the Thanksgiving table and we remember them as we gather, those unseen guests at our tables with us, year after year.
This year, Thanksgiving Day comes in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, a season of racial reckoning and political dispute, ongoing struggles to make it financially, to stay well, and to deal with the effects of months of being isolated and separated from much of what gave our lives meaning and joy. This year, Thanksgiving Day comes as we try to regain a sense of trust in a world of misinformation and disinformation. This year Thanksgiving Day comes with 250,000 empty chairs at family tables in homes of our neighbors nationwide – and many of us will be alone by choice, for any number of reasons.
We are called to thank God for the whole of life- the good days and the more difficult ones, our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows, and it’s not always an easy thing to do. “In everything give thanks,” I Thessalonians 5:18 reminds us. Not FOR all things, but IN all things. The Jewish people formulated blessing for every circumstance in their lives. If it was good news, their prayer was “Blessed be the God who is good and who does wondrous things.” If news was bad, they would pray, “Blessed be the God who makes haste to help me.” As far as they were concerned, they had a duty to pronounce a blessing on the bad in life as well as the good, because all of life comes from God.
Our challenge this week of Thanksgiving, is to give thanks for the mixed blessings of life, knowing that God is working in all things for good, and resting in the assurance that God’s love will never let us go. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Elizabeth