Anything Can Happen…

Perhaps it is because we have now entered the third month of COVID-19 isolation or because snow so thick it caused whiteouts has fallen in Mid-May, I find myself thinking, “anything can happen.”

As the “New Normal” slowly emerges from weeks of uncertainty cars in  “curbside” pick-up lines twist around the parking lots,  masked shoppers fill the grocery stores and security guards stop people to ensure they have used the hand sanitizer. Home has become the new classroom for e-learners, the office for executives, and the studio for TV newscasters.  Exercise weights are selling on Kijiji at a premium while gas and beer prices have dropped to a 30 year low.  Yes, most certainly, “anything can happen.”

This relinquishing of expectations has been refreshing.  I find myself depending less on my own sense of control and leaning more into the presence of a God who has always specialized in the “anything can happen” category.

Take what happened to Paul and Silas one day. There they were simply sharing the Good News of the Gospel, having just saved a young woman from a life of despair when her master had them arrested.  After being dragged and beaten to a pulp they were chained to a prison wall behind guarded locked doors.  And yet, so full of the Holy Spirit, they raised their voices in prayer and songs of praise. Paul and Silas weren’t praising God for deliverance; they were just praising God in response to life.

In the middle of the night, the earth shook, the chains fell and the locked doors flung open.  The guard so moved by Paul, Silas, and their God he took them to his home where all his family was baptized (Acts 16:23-32).  See? Anything can happen!

Let us never stop raising our voices in prayer and praise to the God who refuses to leave us, but instead will take our messes and create something new.  The Prophets of old tell us that the beginning of wisdom lies in knowing and seeking God; perhaps this is because in God we find that “anything can happen”!

Blessings,

Rev. Heather McCarrel

The photo used in this Blog was taken by Jan Tinneberg