Last picture taken

It was the ordinariness that surprised me. 

Several days ago,  I was challenged to look back at the last picture taken a year ago at this time, right before the lock-down was mandated.  I invited others to join me in scrolling back. For some, there was a big event like a concert, or a business dinner, or a birthday celebration.  But for the most part, our pictures prophetically captured what we considered ordinary life at the time.  Was that just a year ago?

What was the last picture you took before quarantine?  You might be surprised by it.

The day before quarantine, one of our daughters snapped a photo of me reading to our grandkids who live in town just several minutes away. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t realize that morning that it would be the last time we would be together for three full months. And even then, I felt blessed that the absence was not far longer.  We have not been able to be with our other grandkids who live far away in California for more than a year. 

But we learned to zoom.  It was not the same as being together, but it was what we had.  We made the best of it.  And each of us accumulated quite a few other necessary skills that we never knew we needed.

What were we doing that last week before lock-down? We were tottering on the edge of the unexpected. We could not have imagined a story like this.  There will always be things we do not understand yet. But our understanding does not limit God's greatness in it.

Life itself, relationships both great and small, and closeness to God are more precious.  Or are we just now realizing that?

 

How did we endure, what did we do, and in Whose strength did we rely in that strange new world?

 

This year was not just an interruption or an intermission.  But something way deeper than that.  God has provided for us, supported, taught, trained, strengthened and loved us.  And He is still redeeming.

 

God's redeeming has no expiration date.  He promises in Scripture, "I will restore to you, the years that the swarming locust has eaten."  Joel 2. 25    God's mercies often appear in unexpected ways, but always and exactly what we need.

 

In all those unexpected moments and months, God has been with us.  We all view life far differently now than we did a year ago.  God has filled that year with extraordinary stories, still unfolding.  And as the writer of Luke stated upfront in his gospel:

...to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us....   Luke 1. 1  

 

May we not forget the stories.  May we not forget His faithful Presence.  

Not just in what has been.  But what is now.

 

What is our first snap shot for the days and weeks and months to come?  What are we holding onto? Or perhaps in this continuing epic:  realizing Who has a strong hold on us.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is Your faithfulness.

 

                Lamentations 3. 21-23