Worship Opportunities

December 28, 2025 marks the third birthday of our little MonaJean Joy. Oh how I wish we could celebrate with her and her potential three-nager self! Gotta love the budding “independence” and expression of a three-year-old! 

Today I yet again retrieved MonaJean’s treasure chest (a sterile, plastic storage bin) from the top of my closet to reminisce over its contents. Like last year, I again read every note, looked over and touched each member of her “fan club” (the stuffed animals who adorned her NICU cradle), and sat with each memory I could recall from that special, exclusive BIRTHday.

Two memories wound themselves together so beautifully as I sat in this tender space; both were given by senior saints who are graced with a far deeper understanding of these matters than I. They resonated with a trust in God’s work in God’s timing. 

The first was an encouraging note sketched in cursive from one of the most “senior” of the people I am blessed by. What a long, full life God has given her. At the end she wrote, “Read John 13:7.” 

I turned to the chapter and verse to be reminded. The context is the last supper, and Jesus is washing His disciples’ feet. He knows what lay ahead; the disciples do not.

In response to Peter’s question about foot-washing, he says, “What I’m doing you don’t realize now, but afterward you will understand.” (John 13:7)

Christ’s reply is packed with so much both in its context and in our lives now. What He is doing, we sometimes do not understand, but later we will. 

I’m sometimes baffled at some of the poignant life events God has allowed, but this verse (and the entirety of Scripture!) sheds hope on the One who will bring understanding with time.

As I sat with that for a bit, I also remembered a hymn and some words that Russ’s dad shared at MJ’s funeral: In the Bulb there is a Flower written by Natalie Sleeth in 1985. Here are the lyrics:

1. In the bulb there is a flower,
in the seed, an apple tree,
in cocoons, a hidden promise:
butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter
there's a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.

2. There's a song in every silence,
seeking word and melody;
there's a dawn in every darkness,
bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future;
what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.

3. In our end is our beginning,
in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing,
in our life, eternity,
in our death, a resurrection,
at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.

Don’t those lyrics wrap you up with hope? I hear a modern echo of our limited understanding, but a peaceful trust in what God produces in His appropriate timing.

Little by little, God has been so kind to allow us to catch glimpses of all sizes of His work in and through our tiny but mighty MonaJean. Great or small, all of them have been significant, and while we’d prefer to have our birthday girl with us we continue to watch and trust, knowing that God will reveal what He is orchestrating in due time.