Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Norah Summers, an Elder at Falkirk Trinity Parish Church, writes about the many kinds of letting go that feature in human lives, and encourages us to let go in love.
“Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.”
Life at its simplest is a cycle, birth and death, death and birth.
How often in a family do the two events come together! Surely no coincidence. It is easy to see that death is a letting go – but birth is too in a way – it is the start of a long journey for parents whose task is to prepare the young to leave the nest. That can be painful – but it is the youngsters’ new start, and the cycle continues.
We leave our home nest to go to school, we leave education to go to work, we leave one job for another. We may take a break for family reasons, to look after children or elderly relatives, we retire from work - every move is a step into the unknown,a letting go of something familiar and comfortable, to take on something new and scary.
We can’t go back –the old is gone, and we can’t hang on to it.
We can take its lessons with us, the experience and knowledge we have gained, and adapt them to our new situation – which may just prepare us for the next one, and the cycle continues.
Constant God,
our time here is short, and you are eternal.
Our little lives come and go,
and all the time you are watching over the cycle of life and death, which you have shared in the birth, life, and death of Jesus.
Whatever befall, you have been there before us, and your constant love upholds us.
Inevitably we have to face the death of people we love.
But bereavement and grief come in many guises, not only that of death.
Loss is a fact of life –
loss of employment,
whether the shock of redundancy or the scary prospect of retirement;
loss of a relationship,
whether by betrayal or abandonment or simple drifting apart;
loss of home and possessions by fire or flood;
loss of health, mobility, sight, hearing;
loss of trust,
by some foolish action or words of our own;
and can we even imagine the trauma of refugees who have simply lost everything,
including their dignity and sense of place in life?
Everything broken, hearts and all.
Where will our help come from? Our help will come from the Lord.
Constant God,
you heal the broken-hearted and bandage their wounds.
You alone have the words of life.
Your light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has never put it out.
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