Things can only get better
When I finished my initial ministerial training, this was the song we chose to “perform” at our leavers show. In one sense it was chosen to be tongue in cheek, but in others a statement of faith. For me my time in training had, rightly, been a time of formation, of knocking down, of testing. At times it had felt like there was nothing left – and yet…
There are times like this for us all – times of illness, despair, hard times, times when we feel all alone, times when life feels desolate…
For the people of Israel, they were in exile. Far from home, held captive, as the Good News Bible puts it in its introduction to Isaiah, “Crushed and without hope”
When things are bad, they seem very bad. We cannot see that there will ever be anything other than the wilderness. It seems a long way out. Yet God promises that there will be a better time, a time of release and peace.
Into that wilderness, God still brings his promise – there is hope, things will get better. Where there are now only weeds, there can be strong growth; where there is captivity, there will be freedom; where there is dryness, there will be water.
Things are not over, than can be new life. 
God steps into the reality of where we are and brings hope.
Things not only can, but will, get better.
God will bring this to be.
Lord,
I thank you,
that however bleak things seem,
whatever the despair,
the depths of the wilderness we find ourselves in,
you bring your hope,
your freedom,
your release.
Thank you Lord
for what you have done
Pam's Perambulation 