I draw consolation from previous issues. An historic tree, twisted and gnarled, reaching for the sky. A humble hillside chapel, its stones from a distant age, a non secular shelter for pilgrims previous. A easy pathway, well-trodden and well-kept, flattened by booted toes yr after yr.
I draw consolation from previous issues and from understanding that of their shadows, others have stood or handed, whereas others have questioned, wandered, and wept. I’m not the primary. If previous is prelude, as they are saying, I gained’t be the final.
I search for this consolation in these sturdy, well-worn locations, as a result of the storms of life are many, and already I really feel weathered. However then I look to those previous timber, these previous stones, this previous path, and I feel, Issues can maintain. Issues can climate. Issues can stay.
It isn’t the issues that give consolation—not completely. It’s what they’ve seen. Who has handed this fashion earlier than? What wearying burdens and hidden joys did they carry as they went?
When these forebearers of mine—of ours—leaned upon the previous bark of this tree, what did they assume? Once they rested upon these aged stones, what did they really feel? Once they handed by way of this storied path, the place had been they going?
It’s these forgotten folks, then, from whom I draw my consolation. I see a reminder that we’re a pilgrim folks, and our lineage stretches again into the far distance. Although the storms batter us, that lineage stays. So, too, do our shared humanity and dignity.
We encounter a communion of individuals: men and women made holy by the shared pilgrim journey by way of this graced life. This can be a communion of struggling saints. We share this legacy, this lineage, this story. I draw my consolation from a shared narrative thread, woven throughout time and house, a rope all of us fumble to understand as we make our manner onward.
I draw my consolation from this shared story, a story of many chapters of sorrow, grief, ache, hope, love, and rejoicing. There are chapters left to be written, however this story is one story in a single nice sweeping narrative.
I draw my consolation from the creator of this sweeping story, the one who each bounds the e-book and turns into the bond that holds tight the story’s numerous characters. It’s God in all issues from whom I draw my consolation, as God stretches again into the ether of time and reaches out forward to locations but unknown to us.
Right here is our God who’s within the story and its characters. Our God is aware of the trail. Our God shores up our basis of stones. Our God reaches up and thru the traditional tree because it yawns on the sky.
I draw consolation from previous issues, as a result of they’ve frolicked with God—extra time than I’ve, at the least. And whereas the tree and the stone and the trail could not converse in phrases I do know, God’s Spirit dwells right here because it at all times has. From the easy issues, now we have a lot to be taught.
In understanding that there’s at all times extra to know, that God is of unfathomable depths, and that even the oldest tree is however a blink in God’s eye, I draw nice consolation.
