Even in the darkness

John 12: 24 (NRSVA)

²⁴ Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

In the darkness we have known

we give thanks for gifts of light

In a season that held great loss we give thanks

for relationships strengthened

for love borne out in myriad ways that made a difference

For all the signs of God in those we encountered

those who held out faith when our own wavered

and those for whom we were enabled to be companions on the way

We give thanks for the rediscovery

of gifts we had laid aside

forgotten in their familiarity

that became precious once more

as they became harder to reach and all the more longed for

And in our thanksgiving

we embrace the wisdom revealed

that, hopefully we won’t let go so easily

as we forge a new future

diminished by loss

yet strengthened by shared experience

that reminds us

that love is stronger than death

and light penetrates darkness

and that there is no place

that takes us beyond God’s reach.

May our reflection

continue to enable insight

changing the way we embrace the future

in the knowledge that we are held

always in the love and light of God

and that, in every darkness, God is at work.