This has been a hard decade, and good riddance to it. It began with the bursting of the dot.com stock bubble. Then came 9/11, a disaster not only because of the one-day destruction in New York and Washington, but because it ushered in the sickening realization that the West was more or less now in a permanent state of conflict with implacable radical Islam everywhere in the world. Our armed forces are mired in two expensive wars for which the stated aims have changed several times and whose exit strategies are hazy.
We will be feeling the aftershocks of the real estate bubble’s collapse for a long time. It ain’t over. Even the generally welcomed federal government interventions in construction and financial markets will likely leave massive debts for the next generation to shoulder and pay for.
Financial stress can be a motivator to greater efficiency for businesses to stay alive. I have rather come to like the self-checkout lanes at my local grocery store. I think I can check myself out faster than a clerk could, and the lines always seem shorter. But there’s a cost there, too—I have four underemployed children for whom grocery checkout clerking would have provided entry-level work experience. In this economy, it seems as though there are very few bottom rungs open—they are now occupied by people who used to be on the third rung.
I take great comfort from the Christmas story. My Savior made himself very, very little, small enough to be wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in a place where animals ate. Judea’s days of greatness were long gone, and Bethlehem was indeed a little town. But God did great things from these humble locations. And his agenda usually seems to be accomplished best during times of great stress.
Time of Grace was born during the hard decade of the Aughts. We are honored to be of use to the Lord Jesus, and we look forward with passion and excitement to see what he has planned for the Teens.
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Straight talk. Real hope.
12/31/2009 - Posted by LR
What a concise summary of this departing decade. Thank you for your clear and comforting message.
