By: JANA GREENE
“Behold, I make all things new!” was the message on the sign gracing yet another Methodist church in the countryside. Twenty-twenty six has been the longest year ever, crammed into 18 days of mayhem. I have been sick in one capacity or another since November, and I’m fried already.
It’s hard to “behold” when you are in survival mode.
But I happen to be married to my own best advocate and dearest friend, and so he decided we should have a weekend getaway, just the two of us. We chose an old historic town on the coast, just a couple of hours from home. Never mind that we already live on the coast. This is a different vantage point. Different sights to see. Different restaurants.
I have been craving the happenstance of something new but was absolutely certain – as my depression kept insisting – the only things new have been ushered in by evil. The only “new” things happening have been sickness and anxiety and being a witness to treasonous leaders.
Pffff, God. Making all things new. It has been the same old same old for a year solid now. One chapter of Revelations per day, if Revelations had 365 verses, and a fat, orange antichrist.
But then we passed another church, identical to the past dozen we have driven by. “I make ALL things NEW!” it read, with offensive positivity. I feel like God hasn’t spoken to me in a minute, at least not what I have “felt.” Feelings, as I learned in AA, are not facts. But they sure are noisy and convincing.
By the time we passed the third church, I could feel the Holy Spirit whisper, Hey kiddo. Are you getting this? I am telling you that the old ways will pass away, and I am doing a brand new, unexpected thing! Just the easiest and least creative message to announce in black, block letters on a sign in front of a church on a new year? Or a message from the Universe to me? It felt personal.
I wanted to remind God that hey, look around you. This place is a shitshow. But it’s a shitshow you so loved. Why? Why does he so love it? I have been so enmeshed in the horrors. One time, I reminded one of my daughters that we are ALL God’s children. And her reply, without missing a beat, was “Yeah. We are all God’s children. And he has left us all in a hot car.”
If ever it has felt like we were left in a hot car, it is now. And so, in our suffering, we can only assume he has forgotten about us. That he stopped at a bar for a drink and forgot about our existence. The evidence is everywhere, that evil is prospering and he hasn’t even bothered to tip the tables, even though the moneychangers have taken over the temple.
What if it’s true, though?
What if it’s truth that God always makes things new? What if we cannot see the kismet beyond the same shit, different day? I had plenty of time to think about it, since I’d promised my therapist that I’d try to stay off social media for the whole weekend. And I did try, and mostly succeeded, and when I did peek in on my page, I avoided political posts like the plague. Didn’t even entertain the idea of checking on the news. It took a change of scenery and three very convincing small-town church signs to remind me.
NEWs. I have been plastered to the television news all year. But God has NEW news. Good news. At the end of the day, we get to choose what we believe. The Universe is a gentleman that way. We get to – we have to – come to our own conclusions. This little getaway – with new sights to see and new experiences – has reminded me that it is not, in fact, over. But it is finished, the end of the story has already been written. And I get to believe there are better things ahead than what lies behind. It is a choice to behold.
Behold, I am making all things new.
Different sights. Different feasts. Different hope.
I am making peace where now there are only the horrors.
I am making a way that you cannot even conceive of.
Evil may appear to be prospering, but where is your faith, little one?
Behold, beloved.
It isn’t over yet.
Words by Jana Greene 
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