Overcome
“The line of its [the leaf’s] flight was the arabesque at the end of a chapter,
the final scroll under the death-warrant of summer.”-Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, p.171
“Teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”-Psalm 90:12
Who doesn’t like to keep their lives in some orderly fashion? Especially in the turning of the seasons, it’s motivating to pack up the summer as we help our children get into the school groove. I agree with Jan Struther’s sentiments in her book Mrs. Miniver:
“…it was lovely, this settling down again, this tidying away of the summer into its box, this taking up of the thread of one’s life where the holidays…had made one drop it. Not that she didn’t enjoy the holidays: but she always felt—and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness—a little relieved when they were over. Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back. The spell might break, the atmosphere be impossible to recapture.”
-Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, p.2
It is like keeping the crayon marks within the lines of a picture or obeying traffic laws; we begin to set an expectation for what life is supposed to look like, much as the seasons that come and go.
But violence shatters that image, tearing through the canvas of our well-laid plans, and how can we ever find Normal again? The violence that violates our lives knocks us out of our framework, and it is impossible to step back into our former narrative again.
“…violence never genuinely defends anything;
violence only desecrates the very lines in another’s story,
that it desperately intends to defend in its own.”
It is a life-threatening arrhythmia that plunges us into desperation and hopelessness. To what or whom can we look to revive us? As a defibrillator shocks the heart to restore a normal heart rhythm, we can look to the promises in God’s Word to restore hope amid despair, grief, and fear.
“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy … Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come…’ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened…”
-Isaiah 35:1-5
In this fall season, in the midst of despairing situations, we are exhorted to “not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). We are instructed that returning evil for evil only perpetuates the cycle. Jesus modeled for us how to break the cycle, how to overcome these dark episodes in our fallen world, with good.
“This is my commandment: that you love each other as I have loved you.
There is no greater love than this—that a man should lay down his life for his friends.”-John 15:3
Keep fighting the good fight in faith, in purity, in testimony. Arguments are not won by division, but by laying down our pride, our ambitions, our lives, sometimes our opinions in a given moment. In Isaiah 36, we read that “the people remained silent and said nothing in reply” to their taunting enemy, because the king had commanded them to “not answer him” (Isaiah 36:21). Hence, there are times when the diplomatic response is silence.
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
… a time to be silent and a time to speak…”-Ecclesiastes 3:7
Paul models wisdom in waiting for the opportune time to speak at the right time. This was modeled when, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and concern for unity, he preached “in private with the leaders … so that our concern would not become a controversial public issue” (Galatians 2:2, MSG).
Ultimately, we all find ourselves in changing seasons as we navigate life’s trials. May we find in this fall season time to clear the refuse from summer’s harvest, the deadened stalks and dried-up grasses. From the parched ground of hardened circumstances, may we be refreshed by the discovery of an Isaiah 35 kind of autumn crocus that refreshes the fearful soul. Teach us, oh God, to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.