Good morning…
Many of us admire the raw honesty shared by Savannah Guthrie in her Easter message to the world, a message highlighted in yesterday’s blog, Savannah’s Deep Sorrow. Following the unsolved abduction of her 84-year-old mother, Savannah is waiting in the MEAN time of not knowing, not understanding, not having the answers she craves.
“Wow, wow, wow!” one loyal reader wrote after our post. “I pray that Savannah’s message might lead many to faith and be a needed encouragement to those believers, due to their own MEAN time, who are hanging by a thread, who are in need of great hope. God’s truth is living and active, and may it work in the hearts of many. I am reminded of the CS Lewis quote: ‘God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious and shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.'”
A Parkinson’s diagnosis has created a MEAN time for one of my all-time favorite authors. A dear friend in our Thursday group, who is also journeying with Parkinson’s, read aloud to our class the Easter message posted by Sue Monk Kidd.
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Sue Monk Kidd’s Easter message
This morning, like nearly every morning, I stepped outside to listen to the dawn concert in the back yard and watch the sun rise above the tree line. My Merlin Bird ID app identified the songs of 10 different birds. Carolina wren, cardinal, chickadee, goldfinch, ruby-crowned kinglet, white-throated sparrow… It was like the Hallelujah Chorus out there.
Over the last few months, this has become one of my favorite times of day. As I take in the evaporating dark, the rising light, the unfaltering trees, and the relentless hope of the birdsong, a tiny easter-ing happens in me. I’m encouraged to try again, to hope more, to love more, to keep hanging in there.
Our inner lives are renewable. ❤️
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Our inner lives are renewable, even as we journey through our own MEAN times.
What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, TLB).
In the MEAN time, may we try again. Hope more. Love more. Keep hanging in there.
…Sue…
