It is July again. It comes around every year. And every year, I have a choice to make: Will I choose to dwell on the endings or the beginnings?
July should be a month of celebration with Independence Day, three family birthdays, midsummer sunshine, the ease of less pressure to push toward goals as we are gentle with ourselves in the Texas heat, and this year, the birth of my youngest grandson. But for me, each year, it has become a greater effort to not focus on the endings: Divorce and the end of my church the same year, a personal financial crisis that was my own doing, the loss of my friends’ oldest son, and most recently, the loss of my grandson in 2018.
The pain of loss could overwhelm my soul if I choose to let it. So each July, I choose once more to remember God’s faithfulness amid all those endings and sorrows. He is faithful to heal my heart from the end of the marriage I thought was for a lifetime. He is faithful to increase the circle of church friends over the years, including the new ones at Gateway Houston. He is faithful to enlarge my faith in His fatherhood and provision for me. He is faithful to all of us remembering the loss of a dear young man, son, husband, and father with joy in telling his story. He is faithful in giving my family a rainbow baby this year, and I will get to hold him soon by the grace of God.
I have work to do for the kingdom. This blog is the most important thing I do for now. Encouraging friends to pursue their calling and cling to what God’s promises are to them is my mission. Choosing to remember His faithfulness, celebrating the blessings, and believing He is faithful to fulfill all His promises to me make for hope, not despair. There is reason to move on since we know the end of the story, as the writer of Hebrews urges:
Hebrews 6:11 But we long to see you passionately advance until the end and you find your hope fulfilled. The Passion Translation (TPT) The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017 by BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC. Used by permission. All rights reserved. thePassionTranslation.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.