The Season for Sighing
Illustration
Stories
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. (v. 26)
This is the season for sighing. It is the time of year when we say to each other, “Where has the summer gone?” When the flowers begin to fade and the grass turns brown and the leaves begin to fall, and the last Bing cherry disappears from the produce section in the grocery store, I think, “How quickly the seasons come and go.” The older I get the faster it seems the years go by.
When I was three, it seemed like forever before I could go to school. When I was fifteen, I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license. When I was 20, I couldn’t wait to meet the girl of my dreams and get married. I found her and we married when I was 24, and 47 years have gone by like a month. Now I am a grandparent watching four beloved grandchildren grow up faster than I ever imagined children could grow. Before I know it there will be great-grandchildren bouncing on my knee. Where has the summer gone?
Sigh!
Sighing can mean many things depending on the circumstances. You might sigh with contentment after a long day’s work. Your sighing might be in relief after a close call or it might be in in irritation or frustration. I remember my mother sighing on more than one occasion and saying, “I don’t know what I am going to do with you kids!”
We sigh when we are feeling pain, physical or spiritual. We sigh when we are feeling loss or grief. The passing of those dear to us has caused many to pause with a deep, sorrowful sigh and to ask, “How can this be? Where has the summer gone?”
How quickly the years pass and how brief our time compared to the eternity of the creator as we read in the 90th Psalm: “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past... our years come to an end like a sigh.”
Life slips away so quickly and easily. Dear ones are with us one minute, full of life and love, and the next minute gone forever to be with God. Our sighing in such times is a reflex, a way of expressing the inexpressible, a prayer without words because words are inadequate for expressing the terrible anguish we feel.
The Apostle Paul writes that, because of our weakness, we often cannot find the words to tell God what we want desperately to say. But he adds, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” God knows our hurt and feels our pain even when the only prayer we can manage is an inarticulate sigh.
Years ago, in Youth Fellowship, I learned a lesson from an exercise called “The Trust Fall” that I have never forgotten. Our pastor had us find a partner and then one of us was to stand three feet in front of the other facing the same direction. The one in front was then to fall directly backwards into the waiting arms of the person behind. If you could do that without bending your knees it showed that you trusted your partner to catch you. Some people fell backwards stiff as a board trusting their partner completely. Others of us bent our knees every time, no matter who was catching us, because we could not bring ourselves to trust anyone that much.”
When it comes our time to die we do something, which in a much deeper sense, is like that trust fall. We let go of our life, all that we have known and loved in all of our years, and let our whole being go, sighing into the arms of the one who created us.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 30, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
This is the season for sighing. It is the time of year when we say to each other, “Where has the summer gone?” When the flowers begin to fade and the grass turns brown and the leaves begin to fall, and the last Bing cherry disappears from the produce section in the grocery store, I think, “How quickly the seasons come and go.” The older I get the faster it seems the years go by.
When I was three, it seemed like forever before I could go to school. When I was fifteen, I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license. When I was 20, I couldn’t wait to meet the girl of my dreams and get married. I found her and we married when I was 24, and 47 years have gone by like a month. Now I am a grandparent watching four beloved grandchildren grow up faster than I ever imagined children could grow. Before I know it there will be great-grandchildren bouncing on my knee. Where has the summer gone?
Sigh!
Sighing can mean many things depending on the circumstances. You might sigh with contentment after a long day’s work. Your sighing might be in relief after a close call or it might be in in irritation or frustration. I remember my mother sighing on more than one occasion and saying, “I don’t know what I am going to do with you kids!”
We sigh when we are feeling pain, physical or spiritual. We sigh when we are feeling loss or grief. The passing of those dear to us has caused many to pause with a deep, sorrowful sigh and to ask, “How can this be? Where has the summer gone?”
How quickly the years pass and how brief our time compared to the eternity of the creator as we read in the 90th Psalm: “For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past... our years come to an end like a sigh.”
Life slips away so quickly and easily. Dear ones are with us one minute, full of life and love, and the next minute gone forever to be with God. Our sighing in such times is a reflex, a way of expressing the inexpressible, a prayer without words because words are inadequate for expressing the terrible anguish we feel.
The Apostle Paul writes that, because of our weakness, we often cannot find the words to tell God what we want desperately to say. But he adds, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” God knows our hurt and feels our pain even when the only prayer we can manage is an inarticulate sigh.
Years ago, in Youth Fellowship, I learned a lesson from an exercise called “The Trust Fall” that I have never forgotten. Our pastor had us find a partner and then one of us was to stand three feet in front of the other facing the same direction. The one in front was then to fall directly backwards into the waiting arms of the person behind. If you could do that without bending your knees it showed that you trusted your partner to catch you. Some people fell backwards stiff as a board trusting their partner completely. Others of us bent our knees every time, no matter who was catching us, because we could not bring ourselves to trust anyone that much.”
When it comes our time to die we do something, which in a much deeper sense, is like that trust fall. We let go of our life, all that we have known and loved in all of our years, and let our whole being go, sighing into the arms of the one who created us.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 30, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
