From Pastor Pat: Looking Through the Dark Glass
We stand before the dark mirror, asking questions about life.
(Posted January 30, 2015)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
--First Corinthians 13:12
There is probably no more famous set of verses from Paul’s letters to his fledgling church than the beautiful and haunting explanation of love as patient and kind. But for me, it is the last of these verses that continues to stay with me as I make my way through life.
This Sunday we will spend a little time with that dark, only partially understandable “glass” through which God has left us to try to gaze. We find ourselves standing before that mirror from time to time, trying to fathom the meaning of this life at certain points, both joyful and tragic:
- Every time I hear my baby giggle, I hear my grandmother’s laugh … is she back?
- After looking for work for months, suddenly everything just clicked into place. Was this God’s doing?
- I’ve lived my life faithfully, been kind to people. And yet now I’m suffering from cancer. Why?
- My whole life was built around the one I loved for all these years. But now they’re gone, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever see my beloved again. Why can’t I know for sure they are all right?
These are the times that we stand before the dark mirror, ask questions about life, about where we’re going, and the meaning of the challenges in life. The answers, we intuit, are all on the other side of that elusive, cloudy mirror. Come, let us journey together this Sunday, and understand some of the messages that others have received from beyond the point of our knowing. -- Pastor Pat Kriss