Posts Tagged ‘meditations’
Expect A Miracle: Reimagining Our Lives in the New Year
Though the new year may be upon us, many of us are still moving through the immense amount of change we’ve experienced over the last two years. Today, Karen Gonzalez encourages us to see change as God’s vehicle for renewing and reimagining our lives.
We invite you to read or listen to Karen’s message below, then check out the entire Made for Change Audio Series, created to help you experience God’s presence in the midst of change. May you find the peace and presence of our good and loving God, the one who can do more than we could ever ask for or imagine.Â
Listen to the audio version of this blog post and find more audio meditations here.
Another Year of Change
When I was little, my grandmother sent me a card every year for my birthday. She would always write a special message inside, and then in the corner, in small, careful print she would write, “Jesus loves you and so do I. Expect a miracle.”
“Expect a miracle” were the words she lived by. They sustained her and reminded her that the Almighty would act in unexpected ways for her good and for God’s own glory.
Many of us can likely relate to my grandmother… 2020 – and subsequently 2021 — have been difficult years, in ways most of us could not have imagined: We faced a contentious election season, a global pandemic, racial unrest and economic turmoil.
We are grateful to say goodbye to the old, difficult year and welcome the potential this new one holds. We want to expect a miracle — something different but welcome, surprising but joyful. And so we come to this new year with expectation, with the assurance that God makes all things new, even us.
Change reimagines. It’s what God uses to reimagine our present circumstances and give us hope for a future beyond anything we could ever ask.
Naomi’s Story
I’ve been reflecting on the story of Naomi in the book of Ruth. For a woman whose name meant “pleasant,” Naomi led a life of suffering and grief. She experienced famine, forced migration, widowhood, the death of her sons, abject poverty and an uncertain future.
After the death of her children, Naomi returned home to Bethlehem for a new beginning in the company of her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth.Â
But to Naomi, the future did not look bright. She knew that having a husband and sons was the only way to ensure her survival, the only means for a woman’s economic sustenance in her society. Without them, she could not imagine a life full of anything but poverty and despair.
The best Naomi could hope for were the provisions in God’s law, designed to care for poor people like her: gleaning the leftovers in the fields and vineyards.Â
She railed against God, bellowing that her name should have been bitter, not pleasant, because her life had been bitter, “The Lord has afflicted me,” she cried, “and brought misfortune upon me. I went away full but now I am empty.”
In a million years, Naomi could not have guessed that the terrible changes in her life would be God’s vehicle for reimagining her life. Though the pain and the loss would not be erased, they would be robbed of their sting because God would redeem and restore her life.
Naomi, a woman who thought that men — a husband and sons — were God’s only way of providing for her well-being, could never have imagined that a woman — her loyal daughter-in-law — would be the path through which she’d experience God’s faithfulness.
By the end of the story, Ruth had remarried and given birth to a son. Naomi gets to hold her grandson as part of a new family. She listens as her Bethlehem neighbors rejoice with her and proclaim, “your daughter-in-law who loves you is more to you than seven sons.”Â
Reimagining the Future
Today, we know that this grandson is in the lineage of Jesus. Naomi’s reimagined life connected her to the story of the salvation of all humankind. Change reimagines, not just Naomi’s life but yours and mine.Â
God worked in Naomi’s life through means that were entirely unexpected — like a phoenix, Naomi rose from the ashes of her scorched life. As the Psalmist says… Naomi got to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
We don’t know what will happen this new year, but we know who will be with us through it — our good and loving God, the one who can do more than we could ever ask for or imagine. Change is God’s vehicle to renew and reimagine our lives.
As the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20 & 21: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever!”Â
Friends, expect a miracle.
Karen Gonzalez serves as the Director of Human Services at World Relief and is the author of the new book The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible and the Journey to Belong.
Hope Because
The camelia behind our house started blooming in late January, causing me to wonder, “Does that happen often here in Seattle?” I’m new to the city and haven’t been through all four seasons yet, so I’m not sure. But seeing the blooms on that rainy Sunday morning got me to thinking about seasons.
Late winter is the season that most reminds me to look beyond what I see and think about what’s just out of sight. It is a season of potential.
When I see the tips of daffodils emerging or an early-blooming camelia, I don’t rejoice that spring has come because it hasn’t yet. But these little reminders that the roar of spring will soon unfold captures my imagination and invites me to consider the hope and potential of what’s to come in other areas of my life as well.
Something like this hopeful expectation has infected our team at World Relief. As we think about refugees who have been waiting for so long to be resettled, we have hope at the promise of an increased refugee ceiling. Like a gardener who sharpens tools and pores over seed catalogs in late winter, we are gearing up to welcome weary strangers whose long and halting journey to their new communities will likely resume in the year ahead. We pray for them as they wait. We pray and we hope.
Just on the other side of late winter comes spring — a season full of change.
There’s no need for me to dive into all the change we’ve experienced collectively this past year. I’m sure they’re springing to your mind even as you read this sentence. Instead, I’m wondering about the changes in your own life, your home, your ministry, your job, your health.
In losing the opportunity to meet together in person, I wonder if we’ve also lost the opportunity to share our stories with someone else as well, to turn our personal experiences into shared experiences. Do you miss that as much as I do? Or is that just an extrovert’s perspective?
As I’ve pondered these questions and the new season we are entering, I have found these meditations on change to be very helpful in transitioning to this new year, new season, new administration and new chapter of the pandemic. All of this change has given us a lot to sort through. Yet, at the same time, so many other things are standing still.
In this season of change, we find ourselves hoping for what’s on the horizon while still grieving the reality of what still is — the sickness, division, unresolved issues at our border and any number of unmet longings within our personal lives. It’s a lot to hold.
I’m reminded though, on the heels of Easter Sunday, that even in our waiting and in our grief we can still have hope. No matter what our changing circumstances may hold, we can have hope because God is faithful.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch and listen to the meditation on hope that’s shared below. As you do, I pray you’d become more aware of how God is present in the current season you are in.
We are so grateful for the support you — our partners, our advocates our volunteers — have shown us in the past season, and we look forward to partnering with you in the new season ahead.
*Find more meditations like this one here
In March, 2020, Kim Hurst relocated to Seattle for her job as a Strategic Partnership Director, just in time to lock down with her husband for Covid19. Even without any face-to-face meetings quite yet, she feels privileged to be serving World Relief’s partners in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.