♪A Note of Thanks ♪
On this crisp 30-something degree, first Monday after Christmas, after a brisk walk with heavy leather coat, gloves and toboggan on, I am sitting on a weather-worn teak garden bench looking out over the kitchen garden of the Botanical Gardens. It is in this place, many sunny days during the cold months, after a brisk walk, that I sit here to be quiet, pray, contemplate and listen to God, as I soak up the warmth of the Winter sun, shielded on this overlook from the wind and away from the hustle and bustle of life. It is as if I’m in the ‘cleft of the rock,’ safe from the outside cares of this world.
How did you fare over the holidays? Did you remember the good things of times past, with loved ones who are now gone from this life? Did you become sad or even weep? Did you feel lonely and perhaps unloved, even though you know there are those that love and care for you?
Over the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I sent and received Christmas cards, shared in meals with precious friends and loved ones, listened and participated in the most wonderful music this side of Heaven, gave and received gifts, and then over the weekend, made phone calls to friends and family. It was over this time period that I had moments when I couldn’t help but cry and shed tears. I can’t exactly explain it, but most times it was because of a loss in my life where a loved one had gone to Heaven or perhaps other kinds of losses where my heart is touched in the innermost part.
It was while making that last Christmas phone call on Sunday evening that I realized just how blessed we truly are. My friend, Paula, in San Antonio, had lost her mother to cancer and her father to a gruesome murder several years ago. She moved from Alabama to Texas to make a fresh start in her life. Life was just too painful here. She now has a job, has purchased an older two bedroom home, found a church where she serves in the bell choir, has loving friends, a sweet Boston terrier and works with the Girl Scouts. She has had several surgeries, but has learned to cope despite what has occurred in her life. She perseveres. She encourages others. She loves others. She helps others.
With these thoughts in mind, it is this kind of pain which rightly draws us to participate in communities of healing and to become communities of healing. God breaks into the world anew each time we tend to another’s wounds. One should never sit alone in the darkness of metanoia. God is there in the desiring of something different, in the shifting of perspective and the seeing anew of a familiar landscape. And God is there when we hold each others’ hands and trust the beauty of the process.
Joy and all good things to you and your family during Christmastide.
Happy New Year!
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus; there is room in my heart for You!
Joyfully serving alongside you,
Your friend,
Mark David Jackson
