Honey, I know, I know
I know times are changing
It’s time we all reach out
For something new, that means you too
Purple Rain, Prince
#REALLY2016
2016 said goodbye to a Prince, a Princess and my favorite TV dad. #REALLY2016
This year saw the end of a communist ruler rule on the planet and the end of a man who orbited the planet three times. #REALLY2016
This trip around the sun saw TV celebrity business mogul beat out a lying politician for the presidency. #REALLY2016
The Champ fought his final fight and lost the final round. #REALLY2016
And OMG, everything 1980’s has fashionably returned clear to tight rolling your acid washed jeans. #REALLY2016
As hashtaggers, bloggers and arm chair prognosticators of what life should be slap a newsfeed label of #REALLY2016 on every seemingly catastrophic breathe stealing piece of social clamor somewhere in the hashtag of disbelief is what really happened in 2016.
Somewhere in some little town and in a big city, a husband buried is wife. #REALLY
Parents put to rest a child who’s time came far too soon. #REALLY
Friends parted, marriages ended and hearts broke. #REALLY
Real disbelief happened. Real hurt was felt. Real brokenness was experienced.
When our eyes often mistrusted what they read across the social news ticker of life, what was REALLY happening was just as hard to believe. Trouble, struggle and hurt REALLY showed up in life.
It showed up in mine. And if I told you, you wouldn’t believe my #REALLY2016.
And while REALLY really showed up…so did God. #REALLY
In the middle of my mess, I found myself and walked out of the darkness and into the light of who I was called to be. #REALLY
In the center of storm, I found the Prince of Peace. #REALLY
In the hell that I walked, I found little slices of Heaven. #REALLY
My REALLY was met with reality that hurt was happening. But my reality was also encountered by the maker of my life. In the moments of tearing worlds his healing hand was helping me find shelter in the circumstantial storm.
Jesus said this “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
As we close the chapter on 2016 and set to encountered every #REALLY2017 we walk into it with this truth, he has already overcome every really, REALLY. For all the unbelievable, Jesus still is…REALLY.
