Here’s an understatement: 2020 has been difficult.
This has been a hard year and there is just no denying it.
In the town where I live Covid-19 is hitting us pretty hard. More than 1 in 30 people in our city have the virus and friends of mine who are health care workers on the front lines are telling me that they are just so weary.
In our congregation, there have been a number of difficult deaths that have left not only families and friends grieving, but a huge part of our community as well.
In addition to that, this past Friday marked the day when our son Henry would have been born. We have 4 children that were never born due to miscarriages and with each passing year, when what would have been their birthdays arrive, we hurt all over again.
So many times we don’t want to allow people to live with their hurt. We want to say something like, “I’m sorry for your loss but…” and then we try to give a bright side.
But the thing is, grief is a significant and profound part of our lives. If we can’t allow others to sit with their grief, and if we can’t sit with it ourselves, then we are robbing ourselves and each other of the chance to accept that something important and significant was lost. We also aren’t able to heal in healthy ways.
We are all dealing with loss in 2020. Lost loved ones, lost holiday gatherings, lost social activities, lost income, and lost time. Until we can accept our losses and grieve them, we are only hiding from them and delaying our healing.
This musical moment of sabbath is a way that I coped and am coping with our own personal loss of 4 babies. I hope it can be a metaphor for the losses that we have all experienced in this past year. May God help us sit with the loss and allow Jesus to enter into them with us.
In Advent, we wait with expectation for the coming of the Christ. We long for the return of the one who will wipe the tears from every eye with his own hands. We depend on the God who does not leave us alone in our suffering.
God, help us lay our losses in your everlasting arms.
Blessings,
Rick Lee James