A blessing for a year that didn’t turn out like we thought
it should.
Blessed are you who look back in grief,
you have lost so
much.
And no amount of
perspective or gratitude will fix it.
It was never supposed
to be this way.
Blessed are you for whom this was all the time you had left
and it was spent
locked inside,
fearful,
disappointed, lonely.
The hugs, you never
gave the goodbyes you never said.
The clock was not on
your side.
Blessed are you oh tired one.
The parenting, the
caregiving, the worrying, it is too much. Teaching and doctoring, pastoring and
nursing,
you have no choice
but to keep showing up.
Blessed are you who are anxious for what comes next,
who wait for the
other shoe to drop and toss and turn until sunup. Wondering where the next
paycheck will come from,
what the next scan
will reveal,
how you’ll keep it
together for the ones you love.
And blessed are you who hope still.
Despite all you’ve
seen and all you’ve gone through,
you cling to an
audacious belief
that this is not all
there is.
You trust that the
dawn is coming.
No, 2020 has not been the year we needed,
we grieve
collectively, let alone in our homes,
and long for the day
where we can be together again
when hope isn’t just
another four letter word,
but something
tangible,
something we can
taste and see, feel and touch.
In the meantime, we wait.
During this long
stretch of [Winter],
may our grief remind
us of our capacity to love,
may our courage be
contagious,
may we find tiny
pockets of joy,
and may we continue
to be people of hard won hope
who know how to live
amidst uncertainty,
inside of the limits
of our bodies and minds and homes
and choose to build
beautiful lives here still.
We are the people who know
that beauty and love
and truth can still
grow out of the hard
cold ground.
And sometimes that
can feel like just enough to cling to,
just enough to carry
us through.
(from Kate Bowler, Everything Happens podcast, season 5,
episode 32:)
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