I came across the word resurgam in The Bronte Plot (Katherine Raey) as quoted from Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte). I immediately looked it up to confirm it’s existence. Resurgam, Latin for “I shall rise again.” This struck a cord with me. This is a word that begs to be embraced. If you can claim a word, this is mine.
This year has been a pretty decent year. After a series of hard years filled with grief, loss, and exhaustion, this year has come like dawn breaking over the horizon after a dark night: slow, steady, and beautiful. It reminded me of a carving my father once made of a phoenix rising from the flames. Following a devastating arson fire in the church his father pastored, my father crafted a phoenix onto a church pew left behind in the ruble. Sadly, this summer, I cracked the carving into two pieces. Being sentimental, I cried knowing I had broken this piece of art. I suspect, however, my father would have found it fitting, that his art held the scars of a new generation.
There were times throughout the last decade that had me questioning life. Is life really suppose to be this hard? Can I find contentment and even joy in the midst of the struggle? How am I doing with what God has entrusted to me? How much pain will the future hold?
We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. – C. S. Lewis
This year has launched yet another of our children into the real world. Our dinner table is seating fewer people, and Christmas morning around the tree has never been quite so small. Life is simpler; life is quieter; life is easier than is has been in the previous years. The jury is still out on whether life is better. Parts of me that have been overlooked and suppressed in the midst of the hard years are starting to resurface. Other parts of me that have died or broken during these years are being reformed and restored into something new. This has taken years, and it won’t be finished overnight.
This is not the beginning of something new, it is the continuation of a life well lived, a life that has been in the fire and lived to tell about it. This is a life that is rising again.
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!- The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis)
