In Pastor Art’s Bible Study class Thursday, we spent time looking through and sharing our favorite Psalms. I remembered the verse from Psalm 30: 5 that I had learned unconsciously from a West Wing episode and which returned to me, unbidden, walking the hospital floors attempting to recover from my second cancer surgery. My numbers had gone steadily down and I couldn’t go home until they started going up. I walked and prayed, pulling my IV stand. As I went by the dialysis wing for the umpteenth time, my mind said, “But joy comes in the morning.” It was very real. I told Annie that things were going to get better. In the morning, my results changed direction and I was packing for home after what seemed like unending bad news and the possibility that surgery hadn’t worked.

Life seems to go that way— bad news and good news, good times and tough times. Being back in the Bible’s Wisdom Literature recalled another phrase, “For everything there is a season …” from Ecclesiastes. (Other children of the 60’s can start rolling the Byrds’ soundtrack – “To ev’rything, Turn, turn, turn…”) Life does keep turning, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and lately I needed a reminder that it gets better again and that God is with us through it all. The movie, The Shack, was a very strong reminder last weekend. The wisdom literature was a gentler reminder this week.

Not too long after my surgeries, Annie, Caroline and I found JOY. We came to a Wednesday night service and knew this was the congregation for us. The music and the message were fresh, challenging and uplifting. People were wonderfully welcoming. We stayed, joyous for many years. Now, it appears that JOY’s Worship and Music Ministry Team is moving in another direction and, sadly, the Wednesday evening worship service will no longer be for us. We will miss it and the wonderful Wednesday evening crowd terribly, but take solace in the choir and the 11 am Sunday service. 

We were reminded recently on Transfiguration Sunday that we don’t get to stay on the mountaintop. We get reminders like that every day. As we navigate through life (or are navigated by life), we hold fast to our faith and small joys against a steady stream of losses. Some day’s losses are much bigger than others and, at times, it seems that our joy is almost lost. But, we are reminded that “for everything there is a season.”

Read Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15, and remember: God loves you unconditionally! 

Mike

Today’s reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3%3A+1-15&version=NRSV