april: yeah for sunshine

Day in and day out… dealing with some of God’s most neediest people… it was nice to see in April, that there are days when the sun still shines at Today at the Mission.

April brought warm sunny weather, fresh spring air, and the promise of summer. After the emotional intensity of the previous month I found myself relaxing and enjoying the Mission again.

To be honest, after reading the first 46 pages, I wondered whether I could get through this book… imagine what it was like for the homeless men and women who crowded in during the Cold Weather Refuge Program – and for the people who offered themselves up as the hands and feet of Christ.

On the first day, He created hope.

We are such fragile beings. And God knew that long before Adam first stepped foot into the garden. We can be weak… desperate… and so quick to cling to darkness.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

The first day, and already God was sending us a message of hope… one that has lasted through the ages. There is always a tomorrow. A fresh start. The dawn of a new day.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if it was always light? No beginning, no ends. No rhythm to our lives. Every day, we are given a reminder that God longs to pull us out of the dark. Away from our desperation and weakness. On the first day, He created hope.

A time to be born and a time to die.

But we humans… we are slow on the uptake. So the Lord says let there be a season for every activity under heaven. Winter, spring, summer, fall.

When Jesus says we must be born again… is that really such a difficult concept? Through the cycles of the seasons, God puts on a lesson in renewal and redemption year after year. Life. Decay. Death. Rebirth. Even in the Mission, we see the Word spreading “like a chain reaction” bringing joy to the faces of client and coworker alike.

There is always next year.

Sports. School. Work. Life. So much of our existence revolves around the calendar year… which gives us an opportunity to start all over again every January.

We humans must be really slow on the uptake.

Did you ever think of all that it takes to create days, seasons, years. The earth rotates at a speed of 1,600 km per hour. The earth’s axis tilts at precisely 23 ½ degrees. The earth then orbits the sun at a speed of just under 30 km per second. If any of the math changed even slightly… the days, weeks, months, seasons, years as we know it would not exist.

God's gift: a trilogy of hope.

Hope. Renewal. Redemption. The concepts are so important in our relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit… he gave us so many in-your-face reminders that He is there… waiting for us… ready to lift us and love us. The dawn of a new morning… a new season… a new year.

We see these forces in action at the Mission throughout the month of April, which [rhymes with kerouac] ends as he began, “Oh yeah, today was a very good day.” Praise the Lord.