It is very easy in the midst of personal pressures and private confusions, of public stress and social
challenge, to forget the wonders God has done for us. God often performs these marvels when we are
least hopeful they will happen, least sure they can happen.
Out of death, after pain diminishes and numbness fades, new life so often comes forth. After the loss of
one direction, another more vibrant than the first so often emerges. Beyond what the world says are
our best years, comes a fullness of life unmatched by any other stage.
These are the miracles of life. These are the wonders we stumble into, so obviously not of our own
making that they must be of God. These are the things that must be remembered in the midst of the
daily, dull, depressing moments of life.
Good has so often come out of even more shabby parts of our own life. We retreat from religion
because it disappoints only to find no better answers elsewhere and return more spiritual than ever
before. We fail ourselves miserably, then find new life when we discover that people loved us for
ourselves, not our images. We get stopped in our indulgent, dishonest, ambitious, shiftless tracks and
become newer better ourselves. These are the wonders of life.
It is a wholesome part of Lent, then, to remember where God has been faithful and we have strayed,
how God has loved us even when we have been least lovable, least aware, least immersed in the mind of
God. We need to rehearse in our hearts that it was often in darkness that God was clearest to us. For
without memory, hope dies.
The creation of the Covenant did not end the struggles Israel had to face. It simply confirmed the fact
that whatever fray they faced, they would not be alone.
Our own lives take the same pattern. Every life is filled with a series of small miracles designed to carry
us through dark days, up steep mountains, down into the valley of death, beyond every spiritual
boundary.
One of the spiritual disciplines of Lent is to recognize these, to let praise raise in our hearts. We need
to see the miracles of our lives as signs along the way that no path is too twisted, no burden so heavy,
no social system so impenetrable as to confound us utterly. The God who has sustained us in the past
will not desert us in the present.
Praise and memory take us into tomorrow with open minds and certain hearts.
challenge, to forget the wonders God has done for us. God often performs these marvels when we are
least hopeful they will happen, least sure they can happen.
Out of death, after pain diminishes and numbness fades, new life so often comes forth. After the loss of
one direction, another more vibrant than the first so often emerges. Beyond what the world says are
our best years, comes a fullness of life unmatched by any other stage.
These are the miracles of life. These are the wonders we stumble into, so obviously not of our own
making that they must be of God. These are the things that must be remembered in the midst of the
daily, dull, depressing moments of life.
Good has so often come out of even more shabby parts of our own life. We retreat from religion
because it disappoints only to find no better answers elsewhere and return more spiritual than ever
before. We fail ourselves miserably, then find new life when we discover that people loved us for
ourselves, not our images. We get stopped in our indulgent, dishonest, ambitious, shiftless tracks and
become newer better ourselves. These are the wonders of life.
It is a wholesome part of Lent, then, to remember where God has been faithful and we have strayed,
how God has loved us even when we have been least lovable, least aware, least immersed in the mind of
God. We need to rehearse in our hearts that it was often in darkness that God was clearest to us. For
without memory, hope dies.
The creation of the Covenant did not end the struggles Israel had to face. It simply confirmed the fact
that whatever fray they faced, they would not be alone.
Our own lives take the same pattern. Every life is filled with a series of small miracles designed to carry
us through dark days, up steep mountains, down into the valley of death, beyond every spiritual
boundary.
One of the spiritual disciplines of Lent is to recognize these, to let praise raise in our hearts. We need
to see the miracles of our lives as signs along the way that no path is too twisted, no burden so heavy,
no social system so impenetrable as to confound us utterly. The God who has sustained us in the past
will not desert us in the present.
Praise and memory take us into tomorrow with open minds and certain hearts.
THE WONDERS OF LENT
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