We have all experienced the moment when someone looks seriously at you and says, ”Have you heard the news?” Regardless of what the news may be, you know—it’s not good.

I had that moment a couple days ago.

The sad, sobering news? The last two remaining members of the management team here at Parkview Apartments had been informed that their final day of employment was only four days away.

Ed and I toured Parkview in 2016. We were impressed by its amenities, including delicious meals three times a day plus a wide variety of activities and services. It truly lived up to its name: “Parkview Christian Retirement Community.”

However, new owners acquired the property in 2024. Now, it no longer caters to the 55+ demographic but is open to all ages.

Though Christians live here and meet for weekly worship, “Christian” no longer is part of the name.

Because staffing has been cut from some 40 faithful, loving people to two, it is not the community that it once was.

Those, who have lived here for more than a couple of years, feel betrayed and bereft, displaced and defrauded.

And what of the millions across the globe, who share those feelings because they have lost everything in floods, fires, and bombings?

How is it possible to go on?

For me, I trust in a loving, omniscient God who in His human Son felt all those feelings already mentioned. He was displaced. (From Heaven to Earth. Think of it!) He was betrayed by one He loved and bereft by friends. This is how we “share in His sufferings” as Philippians 3:10 says. Oddly, I am comforted, recognizing that I feel the same suffering feelings as the Lord.

The same verse speaks of “the power of His resurrection.”

         It is with that incredible resurrection power that

we can accept that there is a time for everything under the sun, (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

that we can love our neighbor as ourselves,

that we can trust in the Lord and do good; so shall we dwell in the land and be fed,

that we delight ourselves in the Lord,

that we can rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. (Psalms 37:3-7)

And so I go on, calling on resurrection power to be gracious, hopeful, and encouraging.