The Cup Seems Half Empty Today

It’s funny how sitting at my desk working feverishly trying to get things done, and an old song comes on the radio and I’m filled with melancholy. (I should clarify that I have Christmas music playing on my radio so you know most of the songs are filled with memories anyway.)

It has been such a stressful season of life. People are less and less able to keep their frustrations and emotions under control. It’s just the stress of the time, and what it’s doing to our families and marriages and communities. I greatly fear what will happen to the morale of the general population if they are told they can’t celebrate Christmas with their Christmas traditions.

I’ve been living too long unable to catch up. I simplify and simplify as much as I can the work that I do, and it’s not enough. I wonder if we’re trying to do the old ministries in new ways, rather than just adjusting and doing new ministries in new ways. Whatever is going on beneath the surface, I am just, tired.

So a song comes on the radio that our children used to sing and I look over to my left where the pictures are on the shelf. I see the children, from babies through to adults, and I am so pleased with them. But I miss them, and I miss those simpler days. I don’t know how to get back there, and I suppose in that way, I am a little bit lost.

I know it’s been the year, and it’s absolutely been the stress and the work hours, I know it’s all that. I know that it looks like nobody will be home for Christmas. I know that Advent won’t be the same, I know that there won’t be the normal singing of the carols. I know I won’t see friends I normally see in church week by week.

I know all that, but suddenly it catches up to me, the emotion the sense of loss, the separation. It’s all there mixed in.

But I renew my focus and I keep going because I don’t know what else to do honestly. And being miserable won’t help me one bit. You absorb the loss as much as you’re able, and you add it to your history, a collection of the things you’ve lived through.

Yes back to work, I need a sermon for Sunday, and I need to record it on video by tomorrow. God I will need your help again this week, not just for sermons but for strength and hope as well.

This is going to be a very long, very short season.