For All That Has Been — Thanks

Dag Hammarskjöld served as Secretary-General of the United Nations during one of the most turbulent periods of the twentieth century. Few people knew that behind the public figure was a man who had passed through three years of intense inner darkness — a season of anguish and turmoil that he described as almost unbearable.

And yet something shifted. In his journal he wrote about a moment of quiet surrender — a point at which he said yes to God, without fully understanding what he was saying yes to. He described it simply: "At some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal."

As light began to break through, he wrote two lines that have stayed with me ever since:

"For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes."

Gratitude for the past. Openness to the future. Even the dark years. Even the wilderness.

Yesterday we reflected on the prophet Isaiah in God's words to a people in exile: "Do not remember the former things. I am about to do a new thing." Not a denial of the hard years — but a refusal to be imprisoned by them. The wilderness was real. And God was making a way through it.

Hammarskjöld understood something that is hard to learn: the dark seasons are often where trust and faith are most deeply formed.

For all that has been — thanks. For all that shall be — yes.

Prayer: Give us the courage, O God, of those who have said yes in the darkness — who have looked back on hard seasons with gratitude rather than bitterness. For all that has been, thank you. For all that shall be, yes. Amen.

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