Juxtaposition

Here is our word for the day! Don't you love it? So big...so unusual....so hard to use in a sentence. It means "the act or the art of placing two or more things side by side." Or as we would say in E. Texas (where apparently my brain still IS) "linin' up stuff."

Anyway....I digress. This weekend I did a one day event at a precious little Methodist church in Perry, Texas. The church is 135 years old and set out in the middle of farmland with huge white clapboard and black shutters. Really girls, it was stunning. I spoke to these women about reading God's word, writing it on your heart and closed up with "counting it all as joy when you experience trials." It was interesting/fascinating to hear the words that came out of my mouth regarding trouble. I heard such faith and hope and joy. I surprised myself (grin - that does happen to speakers). I felt such a peace afterwards to know that deep within my spirit I really was OK. But then......

I went to my mother's house to visit with my stepdad. There sorrow descended like the night. He gave me some more things of Mother's - her quilts, her cookbooks and her PURSES. Is there anything more personal than a woman's purse? I went through them very slowly - you never know what a woman may leave in her purse. And I found kleenex. Kleenex. Pretty benign. Yet......they were crinkled like my mother would have grabbed them to place in her purse. It undid me. I think one of the cruelest parts of the loss of someone you love is 'stuff' like this. I always find myself asking, "how can this still be here and they are gone?"

So therein lies my juxtaposition. Two things laid side by side - my hope and my loss. It spoke to me. I am learning that this is the life of a believer. There is a continual tension between what we know and what we are experiencing. A juxtaposition. They don't look similar so there is a tension. But one or the other will be our defining. Loss is real. Many of you are experiencing loss right now - it may not be a death but a job or health or money or a dream. It's still loss and it still requires that we lay hope alongside it for us to be balanced and healthy.

I am beginning to think we must learn to treat these two not as antagonists but as friends. One causing us to lean more heavily on the other. Because in truth, our hope is the truer and stronger reality. God is greater than our fears, our loss, our disappointments and our unknowns. Hope is the known. He is our hope and hope does not disappoint. Oh, maybe in this life we will 'feel' disappointment but for sure not in the next. And that is the one that matters because it is eternal.

In this period of history where instant gratification has come back to bite us, it is worth holding on to the truth of God's word that "weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning." Hold on believer. Persevere. Lean on hope. Learn to walk with your losses. And look forward to the sight of your faith.

I love you. Have a great week.