Because God Has Put Us Here

 

...to give light

to those who sit in darkness

and in the shadow of death....

             Luke 1. 79

(We may find ourselves

       where we rather not be.

Why are we in this situation,

    dark and messy

    and maybe not even

                of our own doing?

Because God has put us here.

Nothing random at all.

God is generous

       with sacred encounters,

       divine appointments,

and as writer Kate Gaston says,

          "holy collisions"

to bring hope and light

      to the brokenness of this world.

And to let those in despair know

      life doesn't have to be this way.

We are not alone.

God is with us,

             even here,

             even in this.)

O LORD,

We try to do life without You,

and then wonder why we

    end up in the gutter of despair,

agony of defeat,

    and gloom without hope.

Please grant to us

    the awareness to be light

in the shadowlands

and to show others Your hope

   by how we love them.