From Pastor Blair . . . .

March 2010  

My family and I moved to Bloomington, Minnesota when I had received my first call to Christ the King Lutheran Church. Lyn and I went up for my interview in late October of 1991. We arrived just after a major snow storm that left three feet of snow on the ground. The interview went well. We moved up in the middle of the winter with three kids in tow. I think our oldest, Libby was five years old at the time. Months passed. The snow remained and grew in accumulation. Then on a Sunday in early May (yes, May) we were driving home from church when Libby, gazing out the window, cried out in astonishment, "Mom, Dad, there's grass up here!" We hadn't realized until then that to her this condition in which we lived seemed to be reality. In fact it wasn't. Reality was there, underneath all the white and cold, she just couldn't see it because the snow is all that she had experience, all that she knew.

"How long!", we cry. Sometimes, and some times quite often, we ask, we cry, we demand from God an answer. This year's winter is just one thing. We've had enough haven't we. Can you recall the last time in Iowa's recent history that you had to throw your snow into a bank that is already several feet high? Can you recall the last time we've had layer upon layer of snow? Can you recall the last time we haven't seen the grass for as long as we have? It can be depressing. For some more than others. But of course the snow is just the icing on an oftentimes rather distasteful cake. The economy, slow recovery though we are having, is quite depressing, broken relationships, struggles with the demons of addiction, debilitating fear associated with a tenuous job. These are just a few of those enemies of our spirit that seem to be never ending in their attempts to break us down. King David, speaking for the Israelites knew this cry. It is called a lament. In their history they had what seemed to be a never ending relationship with trials associated with enemies and suffering. And so in personal and corporate prayer they cried out to God, "How long?!"

The good news is that God answered them and us. The scriptures and history show that God has always been faithful to God's people. As often as the Israelites cried, God came to their rescue, delivering them from their suffering and bringing them hope. That is our hope as well, a hope grounded in the reality that the struggles we deal with are not only temporary but are simply clouding our vision from reality that God and God's blessings are the more real and enduring factors in this equation.

In the midst of this long winter, be it the one outside our doors or that which is weighing down our souls, remember that Christ took this winter upon himself on the cross and melted it in the warmth of the resurrection. God's presence, power and love are stronger and more real than any of these. How long, we cry? Turn to Christ and know the hope and assurance he has promised. Indeed, Christ has given us a new creation. For, in the words of my daughter, "Be assured, there is grass up here!"