“January was a long year, but we made it, y’all.”
So posted one of my friends on Facebook.
I hadn’t thought about it that way until I realized that the trip I canceled several months ago because of the Covid surge was actually only 3 weeks ago and I canceled it the day before!
Good grief!
I also realized that we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of Snowmageddon in just a few more days.
That was only one year ago?
And even crazier than that is the realization that two years ago, Mrs. Sweetie and I were about to board a cruise ship. Yep, we celebrated Valentines Day in the Caribbean.
And one month later the world shut down.
Just over a month ago I completed my sixth decade of life. The 2020s already seems like the longest of all those decades.
But, we made it, y’all.
With every challenge, every loss, every surprise, every disappointment, every delay …
We made it, y’all.
We didn’t make it unscathed or unchanged.
But we made it, y’all.
We’re still here, still breathing, still living, still moving.
Can we just pause and celebrate that for a moment?
Take a deep breath.
Slow your roll.
Quiet your mind.
We made it, y’all.
Now, it’s important to remember that where we are is not our final destination. We’ve still got more ahead. Where we are right now is a layover on the trip. (Possibly an unscheduled one from our perspective, but a layover nonetheless).
Can we take a moment and be grateful that we made it here?
This morning, I read Psalm 31. The heading in one of my bibles says, “A Psalm of Complaint and Praise.”
One of the things I really appreciate about the Psalms is their honesty. No punches pulled. No tiptoeing around God fearing what might happen with too much honesty. No hiding emotions.
Raw, brutiful (brutal + beautiful) prayers.
I’m strangely comforted by knowing that it’s ok to talk this way to God.
In Psalm 31, we have wonderful affirmations of faith:
“In You, LORD, I have taken refuge … For You are my rock and my fortress … For You are my strength … But I trust in the LORD. I will rejoice and be glad in Your faithfulness … But as for me, I trust in You, LORD, I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hand … How great is Your goodness … Blessed be the LORD, For He has shown His marvelous faithfulness to me in a besieged city …”
If you were to just read those phrases it would make a great song to sing in church.
But interspersed within those phrases, he also says:
“Let me never be put to shame … rescue me … I hate those who devote themselves to worthless idols … You have seen my misery, You have known the troubles of my soul … I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and body too. For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing … my body has wasted away … I am forgotten like a dead person, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel …”
Not so pretty.
But—so far—we made it y’all.
I could say so much more, but let me finish with the final verse of the Psalm:
“Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who wait for the LORD.”
Be amazing today, my friend.
