I Just Wish this Week was Over!!!

Have you ever had a season in your life when you just wished it would be over? The entire year of 2011 was like that for me, and I’ve been feeling that way about this week. The first couple of weeks in January are full of difficult memories for me. Actually, they are all crammed into 8 days.

• January 3 – the car accident that took Aunt Jo’s life and put Momma on life support.
• January 7 – the day Momma was taken off life support.
• January 8 – a double funeral for two amazing women.
• January 11 – my sister, Annette’s birthday; she passed away in 2012; this morning, Facebook thought it necessary to send a reminder that her birthday is coming up.

I sent my sisters a text this morning and said, “Can we just be done with this week already?”

Momma and Daddy

So often we think, “If I can just get past this and move to tomorrow, next week, next year, everything will be better.” But then I remembered something I told my son, Mitchell, just last week when he was talking about missed opportunities: Jesus is our redeemer. But He doesn’t just redeem us from our sin; He redeems everything we have lost!

Aunt Jo

Part of the definition of “redeem” is to exchange (trading stamps, coupons, etc) for goods. God is exchanging:

• beauty for ashes,
• the oil of joy for mourning,
• the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. (Isaiah 61:3)

As I thought about that today, I realized that even in those painful moments there was such beauty and grace. He didn’t just leave me with the loss of these women, but He gave me beautiful moments to “exchange” in the remembering.

Annette

Another part of the definition is to recover possession or ownership of. It came to me that in wishing this week to be over, I have lost ownership of this time. If I decided to sit down and wait it out, that would be a week of lost time, missed opportunities, and who knows what God could do with that time?! 

If you have moments that you dread, days you wish you could skip, times you yearn for a “do-over”, I challenge you to give them over to our Redeemer. Take ownership of your time once again and allow Him to “redeem” it with beauty and grace.

 ‘Lena Ehlert

©Whispers in Worship