The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. - Psalm 121:8
Spring, it sometimes seems, is one transition after another . This psalm's conclusion stresses God's presence in passage/transition moments, in "the going out" and "the coming in." Such moments are fraught with drama, anxiety and possibility. Am I ready for this change? Am I ready for the unknown? Who, and what, will I miss? What am I entering into? Will whoever or whatever is on the other end be ready for me? How will I make a whole new life in a new place? Graduations. A job change. Will I be up to it? A move. Everything is different here. Retirement. I can't wait. I'm terrified. If it is true that God offers a special promise of presence in such betwixt-and-between, upset times, it is also the case that such changes may break us open to the Holy Spirit in unexpected ways. In transition, we are vulnerable in new ways. Naked, metaphorically speaking. "What and whom can I hold onto?" "Who, or what, holds onto me?" In entering in, we ask, "What is this place?" Ours is a God who knows the journey, who is on the move, who goes ahead of us to Galilee. You will be upheld. You will be sustained, in your going out and coming in, by the mercies of God. Trust this.
Prayer: Bless, O God, by your powerful presence our going out and coming in, our dying and our rising, in the name of the risen One, who has gone before us. Amen.
