Wednesday in the Third Week of Lent
Sustain me according to your promise, that I may live,
and let me not be disappointed in my hope.
Psalm 119:116
Two kids on bicycles. Three more playing their own version of baseball in a field still half covered with snow. Parents teaching a toddler how to roll a large ball. A girl on a scooter outpacing her mother and older sibling. The warm afternoon has drawn us all outside.
I keep track like a bird-watcher. Though I regularly walk through my neighborhood, it has been so long since I have seen this many young people. I could almost cry with relief.
Not because I see signs of getting back to normal. There is no getting back. In the Lenten journey as in life, the way is forward and through to something different. Life and lives are changed by the wilderness.
It is just that I didn’t know how much I was missing all this life, until I see it now. What I see are signs of hope realized. And I experience once again the breadth of God’s promise.
