Hope for the "Middle" Times in Life

 

Dear January,

I first met you, wee hours of night, as fireworks celebrated the new year, and I sat beside friends and family I love, outdoor air. As another month, a year, closed, and you arrived. A bonfire danced, and I couldn’t keep from smiling. 

But not because of last year. I hear voices muttering “good riddance” to 2020, and I understand. It was hard, different, and we hurt and struggled in it. Yet I grasp onto the thousands of memories written in my journal and heart and remember: God was faithful in 2020.

I smile, not because of 2020, but because of His hope.

And January, you haven’t started easy. Already, I’ve cried and hurt and feared and messed up. I’ve also laughed and hugged and sang and skipped. It’s been hard and beautiful, like frigid waves on shell-soaked sand. But I can't help but smile in this middle time.

Middles:

Like my WIP, novel only half-done. I know the beginning, all the loose strings dangling with color, and I know the end, where those words will sweep in black ink, “the end”. But this middle eludes me. I lay in bed and dream, imagine, try to weave the strings together to look like the ending I already see.

I write, from the shores of distant isles to inland townships and then into the depths of the deserts. I watch characters unfold, lives change, laughter and tears. But now the middle of the story hesitates, looks toward me, an author working through her messy first draft and loving it. 

And another middle:

Shells on the Gulf. My sister and I sit by the waves gathering them one by one. We trace an outline in the sand and fill it with shells.

We know the beginning, we already drew out the end, but in the middle we work, dream, anticipate.

Life is like that.

I know where I started, what God has already done. And I know the ending too. 

This middle, this season of today, is beyond me; I just trust.

//  Beginning: I know God is faithful. I know He is in me. I know I am saved through His work, and I have peace with God, complete, beautiful peace. 

//  And endings: I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. I know what the purpose of my life is. I know what comes after. I know nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. I am made for a New Heaven and a New Earth, where all this world will pass away, and we will become whole.

Whole – like as I place shells, one by one, beside each other, colors. When it’s complete, I see the perfect picture in the sand, and I can’t help but grin because it’s more beautiful than I imagined.

So no matter what you bring, January, and what comes after, I know what my purpose is. I don’t know the middle – not in life, not in the fantastical WIP I scribble down adventures, not in shells I line side by side, but I know I am redeemed and bought with a price. And I know the ending God has for me. ♥

Nothing that happens can take that away. 

*grin* It’s what I choose to hold on to. It’s what brings me through life, hope. 

And that hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

I’m rejoicing! 

I want to challenge you, Friend, whatever your January looks like, however 2020 scarred you, dig deep. What is your beginning, your foundation in life? And what is your end, that final goal you live for?

They can define the middle – today and tomorrow – because He. is. faithful. But He lets you make the decision.

What's your hope today?

 

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.

- 2 Corinthians 2:14

~♥~