Sept 5 - Psalm 30:5b

Weeping may linger for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 30:5b

 

Years ago, I took my boys to Alaska. We were there on June 21^st, the longest day of the year. And that far north, it’s like the sun never sets. Indeed, we went to a literal midnight baseball game with no lights.

 

I remember traveling home, a little further south. It was freaky the first night in which the sun set and there began to be darkness.

 

In this broken world, there is a lot of darkness. There is sin and pain. There is hurt and betrayal. There is illness and death. And the question is: Have you ever had a season of weeping and mourning? Has grief ever tried to swallow you?

 

There are summer seasons in life where the sun never seems to set. Thus, even as we enjoying the summer sun in Alaska, we were terrified at what a winter must be like when the sun, conversely, never seems to rise.

 

Have you ever had a season of weeping and mourning? Did it “linger”? (Indeed, the more significant the loss, the longer our grief will linger.) But like the night, did the sun gradually begin to reappear?

 

Let me tell you a story … A few years ago, I attended my aunt’s funeral. She was buried beside my grandmother and grandfather. So as she was being laid to rest, I watched the next generation of cousins – 2-, 3-, and 4-years-old – running joyfully around the cemetery and climbing on the headstones. (Don’t gasp!) The parents dutifully tried to chase their children off the graves.

 

Meanwhile, my heart couldn’t help but laugh.

 

Five years before, we all grieved for my grandfather, and we wondered if the sun would ever shine again. Five years later and grieving again, we watch a bunch of children – who weren’t even born when grandpa died – play joyfully. And it reminded me that joy can come again!

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who knows the greatest

assurance of the coming joy:

this broken world is full of night and darkness,

but the final (and greatest) morning will be heaven