The Time Being

"And not only that,

but we also boast in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character,

and character produces hope"

(from Romans 5:1-5)

"It will never last" is what the cynics said.

The cynics didn't know either Elaine and me well enough to make that prediction, but they made it anyway.

Were there sufferings? Of course. Deaths, disappointments, moving from one church to another, stresses in pastoral ministry are sufferings.

Like any married couple, we had our peaks and valleys.

There wasn't a tear shed, a frustration, hurt or loss which God didn't notice.

But let me be clear, we didn't boast because we had sufferings. 

Instead, we knew God was present in the midst of the sufferings which gave us a reason to rejoice.

We also rejoiced in the midst of suffering because we knew they were temporary.

Another chapter in our lives would begin and the future we hoped for was already changing the way we lived.

For example, from the time I knew I was changing churches, there was the "suffering" of packing up and moving. 

That was followed by hope for the future which had already begun by imagining life in the new church.

W. H. Auden once wrote, “The time being,” is often “the hardest time of all.” 

It seems to me the hardest time is in the back and forth between what was and what is going to be; between the farewells and the welcomes.

Into this "time being", this endurance time, we can become grounded as we meet Jesus through gathering to hear the Word and breaking bread with Holy Communion.

For parents at Uvalde elementary school, the endurance time can seem impossibly long.

But wasn't Jesus there comforting the grieving through others?

For Ukrainian soldiers, the displaced, the grieving, isn't Jesus encouraging them? 

And in our daily lives, isn't Jesus encouraging us in our peaks and valleys as we love God's people around us?