"Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance." Psalm 66:8-12 ESV
If you are reading this then you are probably alive, you have likely been tested, and in some way or another the LORD has probably brought you to a place of abundance!
I think the biggest thing we can be grateful for right now is life and for breath within our lungs. If this very hard and difficult year has taught us anything is that life and health can not be taken for granted. In fact, the fact that we have breath in our lungs (even behind the mask), is cause for celebration.
This portion of Psalm 66 I have quoted above is something I realize that I have to be completely aware of and remind myself of constantly, because being brought out is cause for celebration even though celebration has not been an easy thing to muster. Where do I find the energy to celebrate when I constantly live out the painful realities of grief and loss because of death? Is there room for celebration when I constantly vacillate between gratefulness for the job I still have yet still mourn over the lost potential and growth that this year was supposed to bring? Am I even able to celebrate my life with community when it has broken-down and all I have known is the bitter taste of the pain of rejection? This has just been my own personal loss, but how about yours?
Have you lost? Did it hurt you? Because celebration is a difficult thing to do when we have all lost and hurt so much, both individually and collectively.
I take comfort in knowing that the author who wrote Psalm 66, also possesses a profound understanding of season and timing and pens this truth to remind us in Ecclesiastes 3 that:
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace."
You can pick for yourself which of these sentences accurately describe your season, but regardless of which ones you choose, pay attention to the implied truth that each line reminds us of; that the season will come to an end. For some the end of the season requires that they build, for others it requires that they lose or cast away, and maybe for you it requires that you heal and pick up what is planted.
For me? The end of the season requires that I laugh, for I have wept because I have lost. And as I approach Christmas and the festive season I am acutely aware that Jesus is even greater cause for celebration because my meaningless life finds true meaning in His birth, that it learns the intentionality of love displayed through His life, and is ultimately saved by His death.
So I will laugh and I will celebrate and I will rejoice in the end of my season, and I will continually hope in better days, for they will come.
What does the end of your season require? For you have been tested and you have been brought out, and even if you haven't yet, be reminded that you are a person of hope and there will be better days.
I hope there will be better days for you too, friend.
_ Takunda
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