Photograph by Steve Smith via Unsplash

The other day I shared with a colleague that it felt like March 2020 for me. In those days, I worked and worked and worked to make sure the churches of the organization with whom I served were equipped with everything they might need. It was a challenging time navigating uncharted waters. We were moving at lightning-fast speed at a snail’s pace. I would go to sleep concerned and wake up concerned – wondering who will get “it” next. Wondering if my mother will be spared in her senior adult facility. Wondering what to do about Holy Week and Easter….All the while trying to remind myself my job as a leader was to keep hope alive. Not some romantic, gushy, fictitious hope with a predictable ending like a sweet Hallmark Christmas show, but one grounded in my faith which points to Sunday even when it feels like Friday (thank you Tony Campolo).

The last couple of weeks have been hard – while I’m still recovering from a concussion, the increase of work and worry is more than in March five years ago. Yet again, I feel like I’m moving at lightning-fast speed with a snail’s pace wondering what is most helpful to our organization, our community, and even our family. I try to rest my head and leave the worries on the shelf and yet I wake in the mornings preoccupied and concerned.

Perhaps if you don’t live and work in Washington, DC, or serve our country, or engage with dear ones around the world, you are feeling OK, but I simply am not. If you know me, you know I am not big on political battles. I don’t believe political differences should ruin relationships or break up families. But this is not about politics, nor is all this heartache solely about the USA….

It’s about friends who are seemingly trapped in Friday (or March 2020).

It’s about churches no longer being sanctuaries.

It’s about teachers who want to invest in “their kids.”

It’s about preachers who are now wondering if our words will be scrutinized by the government.

It’s about diseases returning.

It’s about plane crashes and heart attacks.

It’s about job loss without any warning.

It’s about threats to the lives of colleagues.

It’s about kids struggling to find their way and parents fretting.

It’s about gossip, rumors, and trust destroyed.

It’s about being excluded or simply passed up.

It’s about children terrified to leave their parents and parents terrified to leave their daughters and sons.

It’s about wondering if I’ve done enough.

It’s about worrying if dear ones are safe.

It’s about my country.

It’s about adopted continents.

It’s about you.

It’s about me.

It’s about all of creation.

There’s a cardinal outside my window, but the truth is, I think I need a robin. Robins are harbingers of spring. They point to the coming warmth, but alas that brown bird’s orangey-red breast is nowhere to be found. The winter is not yet ready to give up its hold, and I know that with or without the robin. That vibrant red cardinal keeps returning beautifully against the gray backdrop of naked trees and absent-blue skies.

Maybe it’s the cardinal’s visit I need right now. The cardinal doesn’t know it feels like Friday for me. It lives fully each day and perches on the tree just like on the days when the sky is blue. My dad loved cardinals, maybe the bird’s visit is a gift from my dad. Maybe the cardinal comes to remind me that even in winter, even on Fridays, there can be glimmers of hope.

Hope in a beloved friend accepting a new mother, entrusting her care to him. “Woman, behold your son…” (John 19:26).

Hope in a request to be remembered in paradise fulfilled. “Today you will be with me…” (Luke 23:43).

Hope in a forgiveness that is only possible because Friday isn’t the end. “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34).

Maybe in this Friday season you and I can see the cardinal and breathe just a little deeper. Maybe we can band together, run the race, and rest in God. Perhaps God can use us to help hold hope for others, to sing, to pray, to equip, to rest some more as we hold on knowing the robin will return and Sunday will come.