Light on the Horizon

About a year ago I posted these thoughts on my blog. Aside from some minor differences (much of our country today is enjoying spring-like weather!) one would think I wrote this yesterday…

Lately it seems like I am surrounded by things that are beyond my control. Loved ones are grieving for senseless tragedies, home mortgages are going belly up, and there is a general feeling of quiet chaos. The snow storms across the country seem to be an allegory for my life right now. Baby, it is dang cold outside.

I have never lived through a tornado warning so I don’t know what people do when a massive storm like that blows through a city. From what I understand from watching The Wizard of Oz, the best thing to do is hit the basement and ride the thing out. Taking my cue from Dorothy, I am riding out the storms in my life in the shelter of my basement. On my knees in my prayer closet and away from falling debris, I am safe from the torrential havoc that is everywhere. I am shutting out the noise so that I can be still before the God that is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I am watching, I am waiting, and I am listening for a sign that it is ok to come out into the sunlight again…

“Behold, I will do a new thing,

Now it shall spring forth;

Shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness

And rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 43:19

I’m not going to lie to you. The weight of this world and of my own egregiousness threatens to suffocate me. I have to force myself to look past the squall and into the light of the sun just over the horizon. It is there and it is bright with promise of a new and better day not so very far away. In my quiet times with God recently He has been softly reminding me of one solid, consistent truth. He is coming back. The carnage in Syria will not last forever. Hunger, homelessness, and cancer will all one day bow to the name of Jesus and surrender their vise-like grip on humanity. It will end someday, of that we can be sure.

“Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And he said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall by my son.”

Revelation 21:5-7

Photos by Eric James Photography