Labor Day

September 3, 2018

Summer has officially ended. The calendar declares that it still has nearly a month to go, but when the sun sets on Labor Day and the bonfires have died down to embers, when the last hot dog is eaten and the last ear of corn roasted, it’s over. It’s a bittersweet time. Most of our grandchildren are eager to get back to school. The family trips are but a memory, the summer sports have wound down, and they’re ready for the routine of academia. Little Gemma at six has had her school backpack packed, her supplies counted out, and her school outfits ready to go for a couple weeks. She is excited to enter first grade.

Some of the teachers are excited too, but I’m guessing a good many of them are mourning the demise of summer. In many of our urban districts, the challenges are immense, the dangers real. And every school wonders if they will be the site of the next shooting. 

A lot has changed since I walked those halls, but I can still remember the dread I felt each September, enhanced by dreams in which I couldn’t remember my locker combination or lost my schedule and didn’t know where I was supposed to be each period. I’m glad those days are behind me, and I am a bit sad to see summer come to an end, even as I look forward to the cooler days of autumn, the colors on the trees, and even the first snowfall. Yesterday we installed the new soapstone stove I bought last February. It took a bit of elbow grease to bring it back to its original glory, but it looks real nice in front of the old millstone in the back room.

All of this brings to mind a Scripture from Jeremiah 8:20–“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” Years ago, I first heard this Scripture in a missionary conference, and its challenge has never left me. Our kids are heading back into a world that desperately needs Christ. I will leave home and enter that world again tomorrow. Will I represent Jesus well? Will people see him in me? Will I recognize the opportunities I am given to share the Gospel? And if I do, will I summon the courage and the words to do so effectively? I hope so, and tonight, I pray for tomorrow, so no one I meet will mournfully utter these sad words—“We are not saved.”