“If there’s something right to say right now, I don’t know what it is.” Mary Gauthier, “March 11, 1962” (A song that tells the story of her first phone call to her birth mother.)
This morning I woke up thinking about two hard situations – first, the good-byes college freshmen and their parents will say today and this week and next week, and second, the hello’s spoken by related ‘strangers.’
This time last year we were saying good-bye to our freshman daughter. The year before it was her older brother. Next year it will be their younger sister. By now, the only thing I’ve figured out is that “If there’s something right to say right now, I don’t know what it is.”
I’m thinking too of family reunions, where half-siblings and step-siblings and siblings who grew up in what we would now call a “dysfunctional” environment, dare to meet together. There is no right thing to say in the moment. Many wrong things could be communicated, but stumbling on the right thing will take immeasurable grace.
But here is where the hope comes in. In these moments and many others where no words fit the occasion, grace does move in. When we recognize that there’s no way we are going to get it right, we stop trusting in our own ability to say or do the right thing, and we turn to the One who does get it right, the One who is in the full-time business of redeeming even the most awkward moments. And even where there is pain in the parting and pain in the reunion, our God the Redeemer brings hope, healing, and shalom.
Dear Lord,
Please help us to look for and see your shalom spreading in the most awkward and painful moments of our days. You are the Redeemer who makes all things new; show us Your beauty even now.
In the holy and precious name of the Son whom you sent to bring peace,
Amen
