Hard Times Come Again No More

Stephen Foster is known as the "Father of American Music." We have been singing his songs (Camptown Races, Oh! Susanna, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, etc.) since the late 1800's. While most of his songs evoke feelings of summer and Americana, there is perhaps one song that strikes at the heart of each and every one of our longings. In 1854, Foster composed the song "Hard Times Come Again No More." It is a song that has been covered by multiple artists over the years. (Johnny Cash clearly being the best version.) The chorus rings, "Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; Oh hard times come again no more."

Foster hits on something that all of us are hoping for but unfortunately we end up never getting our wish.

We spend our lives running from thing to thing hoping that one of them will magically make all the hard times go away and we will never struggle again. What we have come to find out is that there is no magic bullet. Jesus reminds us in John 16:33 "In this world you will have trouble."

While we will never see an end to our troubles here on Earth, Jesus doesn't finish that verse in John leaving us no hope. His final word on our troubles is "But take heart; I have overcome the world." Knowing this is freedom. Freedom to love without fear of rejection. Freedom to give without expecting anything in return. Freedom to serve without expecting recognition.

What does this look like? It looks like peace in the eye of our storms. Not peace because we are confident in our abilities to weather the storm, but peace because we are in the hand of the one who is holding the world.

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." - 
1 Corinthians 15:57