Laying the Year to Rest

What a year 2017 was! With Joy and Sorrow in the balances, I submit that Sorrow tipped the scales.

So much loss: more of my friends than I can mention lost a beloved parent.

Others lost siblings.

Some, their life's partner.

A few, the unimaginable - a child.

Jobs, careers, businesses.

Homes.

Health.

People moving out of our lives who we thought would be with us for the long term. 

Friendships shifting into new shapes or slipping into shadows.

The closing of The Lilac Room.

And as New Year's Eve drew imminently close, I tried to shut my eyes to its looming emptiness, to still the pounding of my heart at the thought that the man who had shaped almost every new year's eve of my life would not be there.

The weather was almost too much to bear in Alberta for the past fortnight. Temperatures hovered between -29 and -35, and then we added on the wind chill factor to that. Extra bedding for the calves; machines all running slower in protest; water holes and stations having to be chopped with greater regularity; animals slipping on the icy slopes.

At 10:30 on Saturday evening - New Year's Eve's eve - the Good Rancher turned to me. "I am so sorry; I simply cannot make it to church tomorrow morning." The tractor would not cooperate, so feeding was going to take longer than ever.

The day more than any other this winter that I needed him - needed him to be by my side as I faced the closing of a year and the promise of the new one without my beloved Dad.

Still. Stiff upper lip and all that, hmmm?

I heard my Aunt Mabel's voice saying that Ironside girls don't cave. And so that night I typed out 60 bookmarks with a different promise from the Bible on each.

On New Year's Eve morning I got ready for church and drove myself in. Henry, my Ford truck, protested mightily and refused to get up to speed even after a prolonged warm-up session.

I drove down the 855 in silence, thinking about the season, thinking about the Baby we had celebrated last Sunday and about discarding the trappings of this difficult year.

As I rounded the second corner of the Correction Line, I saw it. The Star, beckoning to me in the East.

"Come and worship!" it seemed to urge.

In the midst of this -35 tundra, I thought of the magi, following their star, not knowing where, but with hope and assurance.

I at least knew this star - our own beautiful Sun - and I knew where I was going.

But what gifts could I offer on this cold day?

As I drove the stretch of highway near Huttons' I could see their poor tractor, a cloud of exhaust smoke streaming behind it like a bride's veil in the crystalline air. and I thought of the Good Rancher who was doing exactly the same thing. The gifts these two men were offering their cattle stretched beyond the actual feed. Here were two wise men who understood that as stewards of livestock they couldn't be off chasing a star, as perhaps they would like; their duty was first to the animals who depended solely on these men's vigilance and discipline for their very lives.

Chastened out of my self-pity, I passed the tractor and the star loomed even closer, it seemed.

"You too have gifts to bring," it reminded me. "You are bringing the gift of music to the worshipers at church, And you are passing on the gift of a promise for the New Year that your Dad so diligently passed on to you for over 50 years."

The bushes and trees on the side of the road sparkled more brightly than any lights I could have arranged on a Christmas tree - if I had put up a Christmas tree this year. Even that had fallen by the wayside.

But the star atop the shimmering trees bedecked for their own celebration spoke to me of the Light that shines in the darkness, and I felt some of the ice around my heart start to melt.

At the church foyer I was greeted by our pastor's beautiful wife, who whisked me and the promise sheets into the little church office. She cut and I arranged, all the promises face down, with a cut-glass jar holding light to anchor and illuminate the treasure beneath it.

She carried it to the front of the church and set it down carefully as I moved to the piano and began a prelude.

This New Year's Eve service was going to be a bit different, the pastor commented. There would be no formal sermon; we the congregants would provide the sermon. We were invited to share something that God had done in our lives this year; or to choose a favourite song for everyone to sing, and briefly tell why that particular song carried weight; or to request prayer for something that we were carrying into the year ahead.

But first a few songs chosen by the worship leader.

The Doxology opened the time of worship through singing: Praise God from Whom ALL blessings flow!

Then ... And Can It Be? ...  REALLY??? Could It Be?

She had chosen Dad's and my "Theology Song"!

The one song my Dad and I always joked about as being so perfect in every way except for one line in the second verse. He would shake his head. "Charles Wesley, HOW could you have written these words?" he would say, only half in jest.

Here are the words of the verse in question:

He left His Father's throne above

So free, so infinite His grace

*Emptied Himself of all but love*

and bled for Adam's helpless race.

"God did not 'empty Himself' of anything; He was and is and always will be God! What He did when He came to earth as the tiny baby Jesus is He 'took on the form of a servant'. He became man, but it did not make Him any less God - not for a moment!" Dad would state with conviction.

So whenever that song was sung in any church we were in, Dad and I would glance sidelong at each other and hum through the line, trying not to grin, our nerdy inside joke.

And THIS Sunday, of all Sundays, we were going to sing this song? 

Coincidence?! I think it was a little message from God reminding me of the words of comfort Dad's friend Tony Hansen said about Mum at her funeral and which we could apply to Dad and to anyone else we love who has trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to take away their sins and give them new life: that[Dad] is with God, and God is with us, so [Dad] was not very far away at this New Year's Eve service!

What if I hadn't come to church?!

At the end of the service Pastor Paul asked me to explain briefly the tradition of selecting a promise. I said that as I typed out the promises I prayed over each one, that God would guide the hand of the person who needed that particular verse for whatever reason in the coming year. Dad always prayed over the verses as he typed them and over and over again the verse someone drew sustained them through the year ahead.

Instead of writing it all out again, here's a link to a previous Reading the Leaves New Year's Eve musing from when Dad was still with us. How this one has come to fruition in 2017! 

Then Pastor Paul prayed that each person would receive a word from God, because that is what these promises are, straight from His Word. And at the conclusion of the prayer he invited each congregant to come up and select a bookmark as he held the tray.

Mine this year - I chose green, of course, in honour of Dad - spoke straight to the tremendous weight of fear, of anxiety, of depression that I try to hold at bay every single day.

As I go into 2018, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not alone.

Happy New Year!