The book of Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a faithful prophet who pleaded with the Israelites to remain faithful and obedient to God. Instead, he had to watch as Jerusalem was destroyed, and God’s people were once again swept into exile. Lamentations is a beautifully written letter full of raw, honest emotions poured out to God. Jeremiah, in his overwhelming feelings of helplessness as he watched the place and the people who he loved get torn apart, wept and wrote. In his writing, we learn what we know to be the truth: sometimes there is simply no resolve for what breaks our hearts. The book of Lamentations ends with Jeremiah pleading with God in 5:21-22: “Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?”

This does not seem like the start of a cheery message for the hope of the New Year. Yet maybe it comes close to speaking truth to our hearts and the way we feel as we continue to face the uncertainty before us. I took some time and looked back at the New Year’s letter I wrote in January 2021. I mentioned COVID (of course) and had us looking forward to staying the path of caring and kindness even in the toughness of everything else. It read like a letter of lament. By now, I know we all thought we would be “out of the woods,” yet here we are, facing the realty that we might be headed back into the woods again. Lord, how long must we go through this? If you are in this space, I want you to stop reading this letter and take some time to write your own lament. Maybe it is not over COVID but over family conflict, over dashed hopes, over failed dreams. After you have done your lament, or maybe while you are still in it, I want you to come back to this letter again, and read the rest.

Though Jeremiah’s letter ended with an unresolved question, if you read the entirety of it, you will find that he is not completely without hope. He also writes this in Lamentations 3:22-23: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” In the middle of the heartbreak and chaos, Jeremiah found hope! Let me be the hopeful voice of Jeremiah in this moment. Remember again the faithfulness of God. We have just celebrated and given testimony to the birth of Jesus Christ, the light in the darkness that the darkness cannot overcome. No matter what we face in the days ahead, our God’s love and provision over us remain the same. Our God remains our God. And through our faithfulness with God, our church remains a beacon of hope. So we lament, but we hope. We lament, but we remember. We lament, but we still love. We still live, and we still serve. I want to thank everyone who has been a continued inspiration through the way you have served God’s kingdom over this past year. I also want to thank you for the way you will continue to serve God in the year to come. Through outreach, nurture, and witness, we serve. Through worship, education, and VBS, we serve. Through our various administrative boards, we serve. Through cleaning the church and preparing the bulletins, we serve. Through pumpkins, soup, and cookies, we serve. Through prayer and tithing, we serve. Through holding a door for someone at the store, to letting someone cut in front of us in traffic, we serve. Through getting up and getting our kids off to school daily with a loving hug and a full belly, we serve. Through reading our Bible and spending time calling others on the phone, we serve. Through our service, whether the acts are big or small, we are the hands and feet of Christ in the world. We will show others we serve a God who gives us a reason to not be consumed no matter what this new year brings. I personally look forward with great joy and excitement at being in service with you all in 2022.

From one light to another,
Pastor Hannah Loughman