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We’ve come to the end of 2019. For some, a long and difficult year. For others, maybe not so long and uncomfortable. But this is not all that’s ending. We’ve also come to the end of a decade and when I glance at the past 10 years, the road sometimes went downhill, but more often than not was seriously bumpy.

There were a few crises and a few challenges. I sometimes wondered whether I would ever get through it. I sometimes wondered where God was.

Maybe you also struggled under the burden of pressure. Maybe you’re struggling with major hardship at this moment, almost like a big part of our country is struggling with the drought.

The answers to the questions are missing. Or so it seems, until you hear something or read something somewhere that makes sense of it, like Fanus Hansen’s article in Maroela Media that was like a big plaster:

I couldn’t find peace. Eventually I sat down at the kitchen table. Mom brought coffee.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked.

“This drought! I don’t know what the Lord wants to say to me. I don’t want to hear anymore what someone else thinks; I don’t ever want to hear again what he thinks God wants to say to me; I want to hear!”

“Are you sure He wants to say something to you, has to say something to you?” came her response.

“But what else?”

“Maybe God wants to say something to someone else through our drought.”

“Say what to who?”

“Maybe to the people who dropped off the care packages. To those who donate feed. To the children who pray for us. Maybe God wants to teach them about giving, teach them about praying, teach them about helping, and teach them about caring. Maybe our drought isn’t just our drought. Maybe our drought is South Africa’s drought. Maybe God is preparing us for more. For more giving, more caring, more gratitude, more “thank you, Lord” for all I have. Maybe God is preparing us to pray for people whose names I don’t know, for new friendships, for a new pen pal who left her name and telephone number and address in my care package. Now I pray for her and she prays for me. Every evening you and I pray that God will bless us … this week the blessing got here along the highway!

“I know we need rain, but this week I realized we need more than rain. We need each other!”

Each of us need. We need each other and we need God. Let’s be there for each other this festive season. Amidst the hardship and the good – let’s be with one another, but even more … let’s be with God. Because He gives us the strength to keep going, to keep standing, and to find a way to be there for one another through the suffering.

I pray that you and your loved ones will have a wonderful time where God’s grace will rain on you. I pray that Jesus’ love will flow among you, and that the Holy Spirit will bind you together. Amen.