Resolution

Over the month of December, I've been doing a photo a day challenge on Facebook. While I realize that my photo skills aren't up to snuff with the rest of the participants, I wanted to do it - for myself.  I wanted to try something different, to think and see just a bit differently. In these ways, it's been a rewarding experience, yet it's actually been quite a stretch for me to do this. More than a few times I wanted to just stop - it, like everything, felt too hard sometimes.  Ar has been a huge encouragement to me, helping me to keep going. Now, with only two more days left, I think I'll actually finish...

Anyhow, today's theme was resolution.  I struggled with what to do.  I don't even normally set New Year resolutions, but this year I know I must focus on letting go.  I'm not sure my photo will make much sense to hardly anyone else - in this context, anyhow - but it felt right to me.

It's amazing that God makes sunsets so beautiful, isn't it?  After all, the night that follows is terrifying.... it's dark and seems to last forever. Everything seems different in the dark, you know - and not a good kind of different.  We wonder if the morning will really ever come?  Will the sun that so beautifully went away really rise again?  Or is it just me who wonders such things?  Yes, every day has its glorious sunset - just before the world starts to turn terrifying...  only to get progressively more terrifying leading up to dawn. I'm not a particularly great sleeper, so I've seen many a literal darkest before the dawn.  Sometimes it takes a lot of faith just to make it through the night.

This is where I find myself now.  I've been fighting the day's end for too long - scrapping for more time... trying to squeeze more hours into the day, manage the clock, use every timeout and trick I can think of to prolong the inevitable - and terrifying - night.  Even though it looks far from beautiful, I'm here anyhow.  To provide a little context for my picture, in relation to the theme of resolution, I included this quote that has been bouncing through my mind for months:

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go." 

(Hermann Hesse)

This has been such a long and hard day.  As hard as it is to let go, I know that at this point the brave and strong thing to do is to let go.  It's time to accept the night has come, trusting that the dawn also will come - and hoping for a better tomorrow.  It's awfully dark, though - and it hurts an awful lot.  

In church this morning, the pastor spoke of when young Jesus gave his parents a big scare when he stayed in Jerusalem, while they were headed home.  They eventually, after a lot of anxiety, found him in the temple sitting with the teachers, listening and asking questions... and amazing them with his understanding.  His parents were astonished.  When his mother asked him why he would cause them this anxiety, he answered, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"  

To be honest, I've never really thought much about this passage before, but I'm glad I was there to hear it today, because it came to life for me today.  This, just a few days after I started reading a book called, "Where is God when it Hurts?"  (Philip Yancey).  So far I've not found the book to be that insightful yet - but I'm only about 25% in.  I've always liked Philip Yancey's writing quite a bit, so I'll stick with it. However, the sermon today seemed to be the very reminder I was looking for in this book.  "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"  

The pastor explained that the more literal translation would be to say, "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?"  He emphasized that while we - even those of us who know Jesus - search for Jesus, he's already made himself perfectly known to us.  He hasn't left; he's still about his Father's business. 

Jesus hasn't left - I know exactly where to find him.  

"God of grace and truth, in Christ Jesus you come among us as light shining in the darkness.  I confess that I have not welcomed the light, and have not trusted the good news of great joy.  Forgive me and renew my hope, so that I may live in the fullness of your love, trusting in the grace of Christ our Lord."