By Katy Mariotti

Comfort and Newness

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north, around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 1:3-9 English Standard Version

I’ve been thinking a lot about cycles of life lately. We’re kind of going through a time in our household: the kids are getting older, my husband and I are at ages where we’re trying to figure out if what we’re doing is what we really want to be doing, and I’m about to have a new baby which will completely change our family dynamic.  When I take a step back, I think of this cycle of childhood, marriage, adulthood, having children of your own so they can grow and have their own children, and it can make you feel caught in a loop.

This passage from Ecclesiastes seems a little depressing at first. Everything has been done before, it’s all weary, and there’s nothing new. But I actually think it can be a little comforting. When I first started experiencing anxiety, it was really helpful to me to learn that I wasn’t the only person to go through what I was going through. In that way, it’s comforting to think that generations have gone through having children, grieving getting older, and figuring out next steps. We are not alone.

It’s not just that, though. We’re NOT alone, but also, when we’re feeling worn down, we have Jesus who has made all things new.

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:4 ESV

We travel this cycle of life in the confidence that we are not alone, that humans have experienced what we are experiencing and that God has promised His Holy Spirit to be with us always. And we also have the promise that we can walk in the newness of life. Let us travel with these truths fortifying our journey.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado