“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).
When my youngest struggles to overcome heartbreak from a friendship that didn’t work out, my lungs struggle to take in a vast, uncertain hope as I watch him start over with a new friend. I’m glad, but still nervous for him, when this new friend smiles repeatedly, follows him eagerly and seems even more invested in the friendship that he is. I don’t want him to be hurt again. Or rather, I wish for him the requisite resilience for living in this world where everyone doesn’t always love you back.
All of this is inside my own head, of course. I seem to get stuck worrying about the future, while rehashing the past. But God is quietly calling me to live in the moment.
As a wise friend of mine, Brenda, told me recently, “The time for loving our children is always in the now.”
This message is an excerpt from a Women of the ELCA blog by Elizabeth Hunter. Today we remember the Holy Innocents, martyrs.
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