Along with 1000’s of students and teachers, my oldest daughter returns to lead her 4th grade classroom tomorrow. Making the significant transition from summer days to schools days requires massive focus, faith, and fortitude.
It is also an important time to pause…to take a breath…to acknowledge the season passing in anticipation of the one just ahead. It always seems most important to choose to take these pauses when we feel we can least afford the time to do so but do so we must.
Within this pause, we can first acknowledge gratitude – all that we have been given, all that we have experienced and celebrated during that season – weddings, travel adventures, new homes, new friends, and most especially, the gift to see another fall. And once gratitude has replenished our buckets – our souls and our hearts – then we can be brave to also acknowledge any losses, any unexpected hurts, setbacks, or discouragments.
Both the gifts and the griefs shore up our souls for the season ahead for we never know what might lie just around the next bend.
It is within this holy pause, that we are free to identify and connect to our power source…the core of our lives. For me, the power source is my Abba’s – my Father God’s love for me. Mind you…my power source is not my love for my Abba…nope..because on any given day, my choice to love or my ability to love may be quite pitiful, rebellious, unbelieving, and flat out zero. No, my power source is my Abba’s immutable, mysterious, incomprehensible love for me. It is the river of grace that carries me with absolutely no effort or performance on my part. It is the most welcomed relief to my overly examined life.
And it is out of this power source…this love….that I am made brave to honestly see the gifts and the griefs and cherish them both.
So, pause…take a breath…take a seat….
Practice gratitude…embrace both the gift and the grief…
We need to cherish and honor both.
