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DR MICHAEL SLATTERY: Where has the Year Gone?

With our Higher School certificate students sitting for their external examinations we are bound to ask:Where has the year gone to? Only a few weeks of the school year remaining!

Dr Michael Slattery October 30, 2017

However, when you look into faces you can see from the lines of weariness that a year has gone by and it will be great to have a break from the usual daily routine. I suppose the quick passing of a year illustrates in some way how brief the measure of our own life really is; the author of Psalm 102 further illustrates that a couple of thousand years haven’t made much difference to the way in which people have their ups and downs:

‘Good Lord, where are you?

If you really do exist,

Why don’t you come out of hiding

And do something about this creature in distress.

I am physically weary,

I am mentally depressed,

I am spiritually defeated.

I can’t eat, can’t sleep

I feel like discarded refuse in the back alley;

Like yesterday’s rubbish shuffled around by the wind.”

If you’re feeling as bad as the psalmist seems to be, then thank heavens for holidays. They allow for a change in routine and, if you’re lucky, a change in scenery. Also, they allow some time for plain “peace and quiet”. In times of serenity when the hustle and bustle is far away, it is possible to answer the question “Good Lord, where are you?” and maybe like the psalmist you can experience the answer:

“I know that God is with me today –

Just as surely as he was with his saints of old.

I have neither to fear nor doubt

The eternal love and presence of my Lord.”

Hopefully, the remaining weeks of the school year will be a time of enjoyment and cooperation so that the rewards of a year’s fine effort can be experienced by everyone to the very last day.

Peace and Blessings