Life""living""is a problem, and we just can't fix it. We can't control it. We can't perfectly understand it. The past is often a puzzle. The present is a challenge. And we can't with certainty plan for the future, as the future simply has too many what-ifs, unknowns, and variables.

The Problem, with a capital P, is life, plain and simple. Illness, death, loneliness, divorce, children who break our hearts, friends and family from whom we are alienated. Career challenges""or a lack of career in the face of job loss. Politics, wars, natural disasters, the list of earthly woes is endless. We can't fix them, but I know who can.

This book looks at forty-nine different situations I have experienced either firsthand or through the lives of friends and relatives. They are meditations, a word which in Hebrew doesn't necessarily mean quiet contemplation. Rather, the root word for meditate, hagah, often meant "to moan, utter aloud, muse, and just plain mutter"; "to roar"; "to growl"; "to speak out"; or in short, oftentimes "pure lamentation and calling out to God." Forty-nine reflections on woes and finding God's love within them. The fiftieth entry puts the emphasis on Jubilee. In the Old Testament, guidelines for the newly established Jewish nation directed that every fiftieth year was a time for rest, renewal, and celebration. And so the fiftieth meditation does just that""celebrates the Lord's goodness and provision for his people. We of the New Covenant, the Church, can face life's trials and hardships knowing that one of these days Jesus's promise, "I am making everything new" (Revelation 21:5), will come to pass. In Christ's kingdom, there will be jubilee. And so let us begin the journey of meditating on life's challenges, knowing that we can't fix it but focusing always on the One who can.

--Sandra Still

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