Happy New Year!
360 Vision
Happy New Year! Thank you so much for being part of the adventure that is Gift of Blessing Trust..
So begins another decade. The days ahead are tiny squares on the calendar, mostly blank, waiting to be filled. I can control what I write in them but I have discovered that the biggest eventualities are beyond my power. Despite our hope that 20/20 will give me 20-20 vision, I can’t see ahead.
Along with many who are bereaved, I've found Christmas and New Year a strange mix of agonising and incredibly precious. What I need at the turn of the year is 360 degree vision – that looks in every direction to discover that all around us is the love of God.
All around you is the love of God.
So LOOK BACK: set up big rocks of remembrance and recall how God has shown his love for you. When I wake on a dark winter morning, I have to remember that the sun shone once and will again. Every year, I make my list of Ebenezer stones – which means “This far, God has helped us”(1 Sam 4). When I take some time to make that list, it changes how I face the future. Your list will differ to mine but here is one we can share – top of the list is the Cross that stands high above it all, the knowledge that our God saves.
Here is the amazing Ebenezer from my dear friend Kayleigh who looked back over her last decade and remembered how God saved her and her marriage - "In 2010 I became homeless. My husband moved in with his mum and I moved into a rat and cockroach infested hostel (it wasn’t the only one). I moved 7 times in 2010. I thought my marriage was over. I wanted out! But here I am... 2020 married to the love of my life whom I’ve been with since 2002 all because we found God! With out His loving resurrecting power in our lives I would be a single mother and who knows where my children would be? Thank you Jesus for this awesome journey you’ve bought us on in this decade. May the next decade bring us closer to you and your glory." I remember the day that Kayleigh first came to our church in Richmond and am so thankful for all that God has done.
LOOK UP - see how loved you are. See that God alone is Most High. Whatever you fear is less than him. See how small you are and be humbled and comforted. See the height of his love, reaching to the heavens, a banner unfurled over your life.
LOOK DOWN – see that underneath are the everlasting arms. You are secure. See how deep is his love, deeper than the chasm of grief, deeper than the darkest shame. This love went diving for pearls into the dark, diving for you and for me.
LOOK AROUND – to those who love you, to those who ask to be loved. See this outstretched-armed-love which reaches wide to the ragged edges, to the places we are scared to go.
LOOK FORWARD – the horizon is lit bright by the promises of our loving God. On days when grief tells me that joy will only come again in heaven, hope in God says that I will see his goodness in the land of the living.
You are surrounded. All around you is the love of God – wider, higher, deeper, longer, surer than we know.
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
