The Door

Yesterday our guests left and I felt incredibly bereft - more so than in years gone by. Today there was no childish cry echoing down the hallway, no trying to quieten the jug as it boiled water for the first morning cuppa, no glasses from the previous night waiting to be collected and washed, no whispering while others in the household slept on.

Soon the spare bed will be made up, the last of the freshly clean linen will be put away, the bath toys dried and packed up, and the kitchen restored to its former order. The remaining leftovers will be eaten or frozen or disposed of, and, when I have the heart for it, the Christmas decorations will be taken down and packed away for another year.

Maybe then I will allow myself to weep. Weep for the five little boys who no longer sleep under my roof every night (although I am incredibly proud of the men they have become and love their families to bits); weep for what I could have done better (now and in the past); weep because my house is now sadly silent and all of a sudden seems too big for just DH and I. 

And just as we closed the door on the last of our guests, we will soon close the door on 2020. For many of us, we will do so with an enormous sense of relief. This year did not live up to its promises. 

Instead, it has been a year of change and uncertainty and fear and brokenness and distance. We have celebrated, worshipped - and in many instances - grieved - alone. We have discovered Zoom and grown to hate it. We have learnt and worked online and realised that we are social beings who desire to live in community. We have feasted on fear and distrust to the detriment of our physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.

I won't be sad to close the door on 2020, but when we open the door to 2021, are we sure we are ready for what it will bring?

In 1939 King George read a poem as part of his Christmas Eve address as England faced the prospect of another world war. It was written by Marie (Minnie) Louise Haskins and seems appropriate for the times we are facing as we look with uncertainty towards the future ...

It's simply called God Knows.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life's stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God's thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7, NKJV