Today is Gaudete Sunday... Gaudete means Rejoice! It is the pink candle lit on an Advent wreath, symbolizing that the coming of Christ is near.
Oddly enough, today is an anniversary for me ... It's a thing important only to me, so I shan't bore you with it here, but it makes me reflect on how much learning and growing I did this past year, and how much I have in my life worth rejoicing over.
This has been a tragic week for our nation and already people are trying to politicize a tragedy and as usual everyone wants to find a way to be bubble wrapped against evil. As if there is a political solution for evil. As if there is a bubble wrap for every possible contingency.
Rejoice in The Lord always. Again, I say Rejoice! Phil 4:4
Followers of Christ are a people of hope. The crucifixion was not the end of the story. This tragedy is not the end of their story. The person I had become until a few short years ago from too many years of too much dysfunction... was not the end of my story.
Christ redeems and saves and heals all.
There is an ear worm of a song where the lyrics make my heart sing: As long as I shall live, I will testify to Love. I'll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough...
My life is a testament to the power of love: messy, disconcerting, unexpected, unseen, sacrificial, transcendent, blessed, blessed love. For some of us it takes being at the bottom of a well to see the tiny sparks of light offered to us.
Those tiny sparks of light are almost like little luminaries that take us someplace we never knew we needed to go. I have been led blindly to this outcome of joy I never saw coming and had given up hope for.
Yet, even with this joy I can now call my own, I know this, too, is not the end of my story. A year ago or so, a dear friend asked me to imagine the possibilities of joy. I remember wanting to know what she was talking about, but it honestly seemed too big and scary... What WOULD it mean to live a life free from fear and anger?
So, I don't know how my story ends, if it ever actually does. I do know, I never face my perils alone, that fear and anger do not produce anything worthwhile, and that I am loved.
For now, that is enough to know and reason enough to rejoice.
Even when we are at the bottom of the well, our Father is there for us. I think for humans, it's too easy to forget, or take for granted!
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