From This Cup I Am Saved!

We stand at the cusp of a new year; ordinarily, this is a time when we are filled with a sense of excited expectancy. Life feels like a clean slate, ready to be written on in ways that will make it so much better than last year's, a slate that now seems full of smudges and erased mistakes … What wonderful things will this new year bring? What new experiences? What new friendships?

Unfortunately, the year 2021 was a year of such great loss for so many, including my own family, that this sense of expectancy is sadly lacking. So as we enter into the unknown of a new year, I would like to share something I have learned from Dennis, something that I wish I had known and embraced mentally and emotionally in my younger years. It would have saved me so much pain … I probably can't explain it as well as he can, but I'll give it my best shot.

Almost from the get-go of our marriage, when the going got tough, Dennis would say (I am paraphrasing here), "We will get over this. At the end of time, God's cup of wrath will be poured out without mixture, but until then the cup of God's wrath is a mixture. Life is a mixture. The bad times will not last forever" (Rev. 14:10).

"And that means … "

"That until now, God's punishments have been tempered with mercy. No one, no nation, has been at the receiving end of undiluted wrath. Sure, there have been bad times--and there will be more, that's life--, but they are interspersed with good times. " In other words, bad times in the present age are broken up by periods of good.

"If people only realized that, they wouldn't get so depressed. Yes, there are bad times. But if you hang on, the time will come when you come out of the dark valley. The undiluted wrath of God will only be poured out on His enemies in the end times."

Hmm … Okay, I thought the first time Dennis shared this. I don't get it, but okay … Having come from the "faith camp" and, as such, not given to dwelling on God's wrath (I'm exempt from it so why should I think of it, right?), it flew right out of my head, like a slippery piece of bologna on a Teflon pan … However, it came up again … and again … until, despite my prejudices, I finally "got it"!

As Dennis has told me more than once, if people only realized that their dark valleys aren't permanent, they would be able to hang on till they came out of the darkness, they wouldn't get so depressed and hopeless that they succumbed to the draw of suicide. And, the crazy times we live in being what they are, I think it behooves me to share this truth with you.

Darkness is coming. It is prophesied in God's Word. But to those who know the Lord, we can rest knowing that the cup of God's unmitigated, undiluted wrath is not for us to drink! If our lives have bad times, they will be mixed with good times. We can have hope that the darkness we experience is not the end, there is hope, it will change, it will get better!

Some of my friends have expressed a hope that 2022 will leave all the uncertainties and pain of 2021 in the dust. But I also have minister friends who say that they feel that one day we will look back on 2021 and say, "We sure had it good back then!" If this is a peek into the future from the Lord, it's enough to make one dread the coming days. But I hang on to the One Who walks with us in the valleys, Who makes crooked things straight, and Who will bring us to the other side.

Whatever this new year brings, hang on to your Hope. He is more faithful than a brother. He will not let you down. And in the end, it will be okay. These are not mere clichés. They are the realities of walking with the One who walks on water.

God bless this coming year for you in every way.