May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace
by means of your faith, so that you may abound in hope by
the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
During this season of Covid, we have entered into a time of fatigue. Fatigue is defined as extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. We are tired of wearing masks. We are weary from the constant news related to the number of cases in our community and around the world. We are exhausted from watching our children struggle with new and different ways of learning both in school and through distance education. Health care looks different and grocery shopping is more challenging. Added to this we feel significant stress surrounding the election and the political and racial unrest around the country. Our batteries are not fully charged by any stretch of the imagination.
St. Paul reminds us in Romans 15 that regardless of what we are going through, our God is a God of hope. God is the source and beginning of hope for us. When we are weary and tired, we are called to turn to God, to look with the eyes of faith and recall the promise set before us.
It is never easy to go through a season of loss. The fatigue we are feeling comes from a yearning to feel normal again. Yet we also know as desperately as we want that normal, it is not going to return soon.
St. Paul’s words to look to our source of hope is a call to prayer. In our moments of weariness, what a difference it makes knowing that we can turn to our Gracious God and ask for help and peace. We can be bold in our petitions to name the frustrations we are facing. We can seek guidance from the one on whom we can always depend. In our prayers we ask for joy and peace to return to us.
When so much has been lost, when so much continues to be lost, when we think we cannot loose any more, we hope. In John 16:22, Jesus spoke to his disciples saying, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”
We hope in the promise, in the time to come, in the gifts of God and the future God is making for us. This season is hard and many are going through hard things through it.
Hope! It is unseen. I hope grief will be displaced by joy.
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