There has been so much sorrow, grief and pain. We are all longing for hope and for a new way forward for our bodies, for our nation and for world. I find myself watching trees slowly growing their leaves back. I am watching the flowers pushing with determination through the soil towards the sun. I’m on the lookout of birds and bees returning to bless and cultivate the ecosystem. In all that I see, I witness declarations of hope. It’s as if the earth is declaring because we aren’t quite there yet. A new season is upon us and there are signs of new life happening all around us, if we will only keep watch and witness as we go.
I am not suggesting we rush into to the hope over and against the heartbreak we have witnessed. Instead, I am inviting us all to name the hope we see alongside or even in spite of the sorrow we still walk with. God welcomes truth and creates new ways especially through the hard, our scriptures give witness to that time and time again.
There is growth coming, new expressions of life around us, vaccines are opening up our lives again but while that is true, we are still navigating, the losses, the grief, and the complex emotions of all we have experienced and gone through this last year. Hope and our grief are not mutually exclusive.
Made in God’s image and made for relationship we cannot heal without naming the truth that there is hard, grief, and injustice around us and that partnership is where hope fosters. Let us bring the fullness of ourselves to the fullness of God, for that is where we will find new life, hope and healing.
By Rev Sharyl Dixon, Kingston Presbyterian Church
