Epiphanies

Think of epiphany as an "ah-ha moment" rather than  in a particularly religious sense. My experience was Biblically based but had nothing to do with the Church calendar. Checking my thesaurus yielded additional meanings of epiphany to include words such as: insight, realization, understanding and comprehension.

The particular epiphany that dawned on me this past week was due to something Sarah Young wrote in Jesus Calling for the meditation on April 10. She was referring to Romans 8:28 where the Apostle Paul writes about how all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

For some reason I always understood that verse to be referring to life’s adversities such as loss of a job, death of a beloved friend or family member, chronic illness—anything, I now realize, having to do with outside circumstances bringing pain or discomfort. The verse does of course refer to such difficulties, but thanks to Sarah’s insight, there is even more benefit from God in this wonderful promise, and here it is:  God can take my mistakes and sins and recycle them into something good by His transforming power.

It was like a light bulb went on in my brain! Even my own, very personal screw-ups can be turned into something good by my Best Friend. How awesome is that.

Would you believe there was icing on the cake that day? I have been reading through the Psalms and was ready for Psalm 126. There the psalmist is describing the ecstatic joy of Israel as they return home from exile in Babylon. He says they were laughing and singing, praising God for bringing them back to Jerusalem. I can imagine the travelers could hardly contain their joy as they caught sight of Mount Zion. They probably felt so full of joy they were almost physically bursting with it.

The psalmist finishes his poem with the beautiful words, “They who go out with tears shall reap in joy.” For me, that brings God’s promise around full circle from the Old Testament to the New to us in the 21^st century. That kind of joy is available to us as we see God work in all our distressing circumstances, whether they are of our making or not.  He loves to turn our tears into joy, those horrendous happenings into productive positive results. Only a God of miracles can achieve that!