Another year has passed. 2008 was debilitating devastating. I lost two friends to suicide and that was just the start of it. I am tempted to say (with a great sigh of relief), "wow, glad that's over," but I somehow think that that might not give God's work in this past year it's proper due.
The truth is that many great and wonderful things were done in the year of our Lord two-thousand-eight. This does not require any of us to ignore, trivialize, or hide our grief from the terrible pains of this last year. To say that God is faithful has never meant that everything has gone according to our plans. To say that God is faithful has never meant that things have turned out the way that you thought they would. To say that God is faithful has never meant that He has made it easy for us. To say that God is faithful has never ever ever meant that any of us knew his whole counsel and secret will. We simply do not know everything that we might wish to know.
In this past year (and today is my Birthday... so I have really managed to pass another year), there has been grief that is almost too much to bear. There has been sadness almost equal to times past which I had thought would never again even be approached. The questions of why have become haunting. The burden of pain has been like the weight of the world. Yet I am still here; I am still standing. God is still faithful.
In this past year, babies have been born. In this past year, friends have married. In this past year, some of our soldiers have returned home to us safely. In this past year I have gained a new appreciation for family, a new understanding of the need for relationship in my life (and all of our lives), a new heart for education, and a new understanding of friendship and love. I have had errors in my thinking exposed. I have had errors in my doing lose ground. I have had the weight of the fellowship of the Church brought to my eyes and felt it above and beneath my very being. In short, God has been faithful.
I have some new friends and I still have many faithful old friends. I did not reach perfection last year. I did not always do right. I did not always do what was best. Sometimes I did not even know that what I was doing was not going to be so good... even though upon reflection that became quite simple and obvious. People did not always do right by me last year, either. People did not always do what was best concerning me. They did not always have courage; they did not always keep faith. I hurt and was hurt in this past year. I ask that any of you whom I did wrong by this past year would beg God to put forgiveness in your heart... and I will most certainly do the same for you.
We do not always know what to do. We do not always handle our troubles well. We do not always establish appropriate boundaries with each other. We are not always very quick to forgive- and of course we are not always quick to listen. We are not always honest with each other. We do not admit that we need each other every day. When we realize that we need things- we do not always go to the right place to try and have those needs met. We do not always readily admit our part in our own troubles- so much so that we often do not even see our part because we have blinded ourselves. We get mad at the wrong persons for the wrong reasons and wonder why we find it so hard for us to forgive them. In all of our lives, in all of our concerns, in all of our woes- we forget that God is faithful. We do not trust Him. We break fellowship with other believers in times of turmoil and stop going to Church when other believers are exactly the people we should be going to. We hold on to what was never ours. We demand what we have no right to. We expect that which contradicts all our experience and all that we can gather from the Word of God and are somehow surprised that our expectations are not met. We are all of us sinful. We are all of us flawed. We all need.
And somehow, for some reason, God is faithful to His church and to his Word. God has been so in 2008 and He will be so in 2009. Blessed be His holy name.
4 comments:
Happy Birthday, Joseph! Thank you for your honesty, your thought-provoking posts, your truth and for sharing with an open heart. Peace, hope and continued faith in the coming year!
Blessings of peace,
Kimberly
Thank you. I do so much love peace.
hey joe...happy bday!
i hear its hot springs weather back home?
It is so hotsprings weather that I don't even know what to say.
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