Step Into the Light

Here we are, you and I, living in extraordinary times that just a few years ago we could not have predicted or imagined; Post-Pandemic, pre-primary election season, crumbling norms, AI mania overtaking social media, deepening debt and denominational divides all leading to even deeper angst and depression. Indeed, you and I are sharing a strained and strange times. Our statesmen and women, our church leadership, even our families and colleagues are calling upon us and one another to exercise greater patience, expansive humanity and even greater strength and wisdom, “For such a time as this.”

Our lives are in a chaotic flux and we are reminded to take care of ourselves and to watch over one another. We are being warned of increasing and impending challenge to our very humanity and environment. Few things seem to be as they should. If ever there was a time of social anxiety and darkness, with uncertainty and generational weeping, we are living in it.

Today, in this moment, you may be feeling lost. “Where am I?” Your life’s path is familiar yet not. You know who you are but I are beginning to doubt everything. Like swimming in jello, I too struggle, making small progress in navigating these trying and disappointing times. Un-Holy headlines bring me to my knees.

I’ve been here before. It feels familiar, like another time when grief and illness, anger and loss, surrounded me and boxed me in. I’ve been here before. God’s Spirit heard me. Spoke with me. Revealed a way to dismantle the box, to breath again, to look up and out. Once again, I return to my self. Return to Your Self.

This is Who I am. This is Who we are together. Children of God, we are the Salt and the Light in the world , hearers and doers of the Gospel imperative to love God and Neighbor alike. We are the Blessed of the Beatitudes: we are the poor in spirit, the ones who are mourning on behalf of the world, the ones who are meek, the Truth seekers, the ones who hunger and thirst for justice in the world.  We are the merciful men and women offering compassion to the stranger and the marginalized; We are the pure in heart, the peacemakers and stewards of creation.  As reconcilers in Christ, we are those who are persecuted for doing the right thing, doing God’s will as we know it, for the building up of God’s Kin-dom here and yet to come. Heaven is set apart for us and we are set apart for Heaven. Christ calls us his disciples and followers. Rejoice and be glad in it! For you and I are blessed, for just such a time as this!

In my prayers, I hear God calling.

O Come and awaken, Sweet Child of the Night.Step from your darkness and into my light. No longer fear your pain and your doubts,Shadows that bind from within and without. Be lifted aloft on wings feathered with grace.Let seeking and longing find Holy embrace.A shield of compassion surrounds from above.By faith, you are carried. Sweet Child, you are loved. See with my eyes, the Sweet You you’re to be.Watch as hills drop away, valleys recede.In new light revealing my blessings to come,Accept Holy vision, a new life of Love. O Come and awaken, Sweet Child of the Dawn.Take flight from darkness, in new life be born.On my Holy breath is your joy and delight.In trust and in safety receive a new night. October 2004 © Cheryln Frost Gates