THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

This last week I was listening to an album, Wait a While, by Emily, Alice, Lucy, and one of their songs came on called Winter.

It is an utterly beautiful song with lyrics that speak of coming home to find rest, enduring the long wait through winter, and feeling that there are questions bubbling up that need asking.

For me, this song seemed to capture something of how life feels right now: like we are in a period of winter, where there is a darkness as we see new horrors emerging from Ukraine every day. A darkness in the injustice that is still present in our world, in the ongoing nature of Covid and the extreme weather that is seen across the globe.

Out of this darkness of ‘winter’ comes a heaviness of heart, questions and the need for rest. Winter is hard. All is not well in our world. It is important to acknowledge all these things. But this song doesn’t stop there. It goes on to talk about how there is rest to be found, how we all sit down together at the table where we can join together, where “we laugh till cry and we cry until we laugh”.

No matter how dark the winter gets, we have an open invitation to come to the table just as we are.

We are invited to share all our joys and worries around the table, whether that be with God or with others.

In Matthew 28:20 Jesus says ‘...And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age”. This is an astounding promise, and something that we can hold on to no matter what is going on around us.

Even if the winter may have been long, spring is coming. There is hope to be found at the table.