Holy Week

It is Holy Week and I feel like I am really in it.  Yesterday at the Bible study we spent time exploring the 15th chapter of Mark and the crucifixion of Jesus.  It is a picture of pain and rejection and of course death. This year I am more aware of the humility/humiliation of Jesus and the invitation to follow which leads us to humility.

Today in the Pray as you go App, we looked at the betrayal of Judas.  Questions arose:

Why does Jesus let Judas do this to him?

What is it like to know one of your closest friends will betray you?

And the answer I came up with was that Jesus knew Judas and was aware of his greed or his desire to make something happen politically.  Or his general impatience.  He knew him.  And he knew that Peter and the other disciples would fold under pressure.  It did not surprise him.  He knew them and loved them.

This morning I sat and confronted the parts of me that are like Judas, Peter and the disciples.  My weakness, my greed, my compulsiveness.  The list can go on and on.  But the awareness leads to humility.  And it is in our humility that we are on a road to transformation

Knowing that we are loved in our sin and shame

Forgiving others their sins

Asking for help

And we keep going.  Keep trusting God in the midst of the dark times, the suffering, the shame.

I think of the song - Jesus Love Me and the line - "We are weak, but he is strong."  It really is in our understanding of our weakness that we find ourselves one our knees asking for mercy, grace and strength. 

And so my prayer on this Wednesday of Holy Week is this

God of love and mercy

Help Me

Help me to live with myself

Help me to be guided by you

Help me to desire what you desire.

Change my heart, O God

Today

Amen

Here I am

The morning devotion today was a reading of Luke 1 and the annunciation of Mary.  It is a familiar text for me - I have done at least 20 Advent retreats over the years and frequently dive deep into this scripture.  Today as I listened to it, three verses stood our:

Greetings Favored One - the Lord is with you

Nothing will be impossible for God

Here am I  - the servant of the Lord

These pretty much sum up my faith.  I start prayer with the understanding that God is with me.  I focus on that and the truth that - like Mary - I am the favored one.  I have a picture on my piano of a mother holding a child and I believe that I am that child being held and cherished by Mother/Father God.  It is an image that has always resonated with me.

 

"Nothing will be impossible for God" is only understood in retrospect.  As I watch people getting their vaccines - yesterday it was 23 year old Hannah - i marvel at the speed and efficacy of these vaccines that we now seem to be taking for granted.  It amazes me when I look back - at the progress, the blessings, the miracles of life.  I know - as I wrote in a previous post - that life is hard and not everything is wonderful and glorious.  I also hold this truth - that the God of love is at work - often in subversive hidden ways - bringing  love, healing, unity into this broken, wounded and fractured world.  

Here I am - is - I hope - my stance.  Not always, but often.  Yesterday in Bible study I quoted William Barclay's commentary which said that Jesus was sinless - meaning he was living out the will of God. That sort of speaks to my belief that sin is what separates us from God.  And so when we are in the stance of "Here I am" - use me, guide me - we are connecting to the very source of life.  Of course, I act like it is easy to know the how.  And I don't always know that HOW do you want to use me.  But I trust that eventually it will be revealed - if I hang in enough.

I looked at this picture this morning of the mother holding the child and thought - God is holding us that way and asking us to hold each other in the same way.  Maybe that is a clue to the HOW.

Yesterday Pastor John included one of my favorite readings in our Wednesday worship.  It fits well for today's rumination.

 

Trust in the Slow Work of God
by Pierre Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
-- acting on your own good will --
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser. Amen.

 

 

When Nothing Seems to Make Sense

This is the title of the devotional from yesterday.  And the scripture that is cited is this one: 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

This morning I wake up to hearing about a mass shooting in Boulder Colorado and last week it was a shooting in Atlanta.  And every day there are pictures of the children who are crossing the border alone to come into this country.  I cannot even imagine the pain of their parents choosing to allow them to be in such a vulnerable position.  The alternative must be so much worse.  And what is the answer?  I have no idea.

At church there are people who are enduring so many trials.  There are several with cancer and others with different debilitating conditions.  It is hard to watch - and while we can pray and do so - I feel helpless in the face of their pain and suffering.

At the same time, my family is fine.  We have gotten through the pandemic with only Audrey having had covid and she had a very mild case.  At this point I have two daughters who - like me - are vaccinated and one more who has her vaccination on the calendar.  And no one has lost work and the kids seem to be doing well.

So, here I am living in gratitude for the blessings I enjoy and dismay as I see the struggles and the horror of this world.  Nothing seems to make sense.

The most helpful words I have heard spoken were from James Finley who said

"God protects us from nothing and sustains us in everything."

And so I pray for those with cancer, those who are grieving, those who are traumatized, those who are homeless, those who are weary from caregiving - that they might be aware of God's supporting, sustaining presence.  Life is not fair, it does not make sense, but God is faithful.  I cling to that thought.

May the God of STRENGTH be with you, 

holding you tight in a strong embrace and sustaining within you a foundation of faith, grace, and a place of unfailing love.

May you be the sacrament of God's strong presence to those whose hands you hold.

May the blessing of STRENGTH be with you.

The Quiet People

Before I started to listen to my Pray as you go App I sat in my chair and thought about the gift of the morning already.  I had taken my 6 year old granddaughter Maggie to school again today.  This time I was with Audrey and that was the big surprise for Maggie.

We three talked in the car on the way over and as we dropped her off - in her pink coat, carrying her pink back pack - we reminded her to put on her mask.  As Audrey said to me as we drove away - "What a cutie!" and what fun to take her.  Then I remembered that when Addie, her sister, was in kindergarter Chuck drove her to school every day that year.  Sometimes I was able to help (I was working then) and often our friends, John and Ella Mae also took her.  They loved spoiling Addie and Reagan.

All of this is in prelude to the reading of today which was about Joseph - the husband of Mary.  Today is, apparantly, the "Feast of Joseph."  Joseph never speaks in the gospels but is an important figure as he responded to the angels and the dreams and married Mary and later took Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt to protect them.  He was described as one of the "quiet people" in the background.  Doing God's work of loving and protecting others in a very humble way.

It is good to reflect on the quiet people in our lives who do so much that is rarely noticed and often taken for granted.  That has been one of the blessings of being part of a church again.  It doesn't take long to see the people who are working in the kitchen, arranging for worship, doing the yardwork, working as treasurer and financial secretary.  There are so many "secret servants" in a church who are necessary and not often recognized.  And also in the work place, in the neighborhood, in our families.  Soon I will be playing pickleball with a changing group of players who are - thank God - organized by Katy.  She makes sure that we have enough to play and does the organization of having us change partners throughout the two and a half hours of play.  She is not a quiet person - but she IS a real servant to us all.

Interestingly, the devotional today was title "Don't Hope for Results."  It starts with these words:

"Not eveything we do in life is of equal value, and sometimes in the more important things, the results are unseen."

It seems to be that this journey with Christ is often about us doing the next right thing that may be helpful to others - like taking children to school, baking a meal for a loved one, mowing a lawn or even organizing pickleball.  To go back to Joseph - I am a believer that God does speak to us through dreams and angels and random thoughts and nudges.  And often the message is not a big "save the world" direction - but rather a call a friend or help out in a simple way.

The devotional ends like this:

"Do not hope for results, but rather ocncentrate on the value, the rightness of what you are doing.  Think of what you do for God in this way and you will be free from the need always to see meausrable results.  You will be more open to God's grace.  

The real hope, then, lies in our trust that God will accomplish something through us."

May it be so.

Do you want to be made well?

This morning the pray as you go app had this story from the gospel of John 5:

² Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^[a] Beth-zatha,^[b] which has five porticoes. ³ In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.^[c] 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” ⁷ The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

The question that always brings my up short is - do you want to be  made well?  The obvious answer is - "duh - Yes!  this is why I am here by the pool"  His solution - maybe the cultural answer - was to get into the waters after they have been stirred.  He could not imagine there was any other way of being made well.  And he actually did NOT say yes - but instead explained why he hadn't been healed.

And then Jesus cuts through all of that with a simple declarative statement - "stand up, take your mat and walk."  And he does.

There are many "lessons" in this but the biggest one is that the encounter with Jesus - regardless of his assent - does change his condition - from invalid  (in - valid) to "made well."  That is - from reclining to walking, from lying there to moving, from living in the sidelines to being on the front lines. 

I think what I am recognizing as I write this, is that the encounter with Jesus brings the possibility of new life - which is a life of not rest - but challenge.  Do you want to be made well? 

Here is a quote from a blog about this passage  from the Ekklesia Project:

Do we fear the cure more than the illness? Bill Coffin said that if it is hell to be guilty, it’s certainly scarier to be responsible – response-able – able to respond to God’s call, able to respond to the word and love of Jesus. When we cease being a victim – “I can’t get to the water Jesus; there’s always someone else who gets there first” – and start being responsible then our legs are strong enough for us to walk beside others who are in pain and need help. Our arms are empowered to embrace our enemies and the outcasts. We no longer make excuses; instead we walk forward to new life in Jesus Christ and go to work serving, healing, hoping, and living a life of joy and fullness.

 As I ponder this I realize that when we are "made well" out life becomes larger than just about us and our condition - but it faces the pain of the world beyond ourselves and finds ways to be the hands and feet and heart of Jesus.  

So, I start this day with the question - Do I want to be made well?  Because there is always something that needs healed within me that causes me to excuse myself from action on behalf of others.  

Do I want to be made well?  Do I?

Here is a prayer for today by Marian Wright Edelman

 

O God, help me to feel Your presence everywhere I go today. 

 To see You in everyone I meet today. To sense

 You in all I hear today. 

 To reflect You in all I do today. 

To pray and trust You in all I experience today. 

To struggle to be like You in all I am today. 

 To speak of and for You in all I say today.

 To thank You for everything every day. 

Marian Wright Edelman, 

 Prayers and Meditations for our Children

 

 

Monday Musings

I looked over my past posts and saw that I wrote about my "Monkey Mind" a month ago on a Monday.  There is something about Mondays for me!  I had a busy weekend with pickleball, a family St Patrick's party, church and watching the Grammy's. 

Yesterday I not only watched the Grammy's but also read through the New York Times magazine section about the top 25 songs of the year according to them.  With both of these I find I feel old and  lost - songs and artists I have never heard of and musical styles that  are unfamiliar and for this 71 year old - weird..  I think maybe I would like it if I listened to it enough.  I usually stick to what I know already.  We use alexa and ask for music of the 70's or the 80's or Frank Sinatra or the Beatles.

In my book group we have been reading slowly through Pema Chodren's Welcoming the Unwelcome.  Last week we talked about moving out of our comfort zone into a places of growth.  I recognize that the lure of the familiar is so appealing.  Same foods, same music, same authors, same TV shows, same, same, same.  Familiar, comforting and yet somehow ......after a while it does feel like same old, same old. There is not joy or delight - just comfort.

The scripture today was from Isaiah in which the prophet says that God is "creating a new heaven and earth.  Be glad in what I am creating." 

I wonder how much I am ignoring the new creations around me in favor of the traditional, the familiar, what has spoken to me in the past. Pre pandemic,  Gender Road Christian Church had two distinct worship services - the contemporary with the praise band and the traditional with choir and organ.  At first, I was comfortable in the traditional and almost suspicious in the praise service.  After a year and a half the songs and the style of the first service have become very meaningful to me.  I am touched by the sounds and the words. It took more than a week - but it took!

And, so on this Monday I hope that I am open to God's invitation to growth - however it comes.  God save me from my reliance on the safe and the secure and the familiar.  Push me, open me, grow me.

May the God of NEWNESS be with you,

freshening you with renewed energy and awakening you with new perspectives on old visions.

May you be free enough to let go of what is stake and used up

and to embrace what is new and full of promise.

May God's grace be with you as you wrap yourself in what is right, if unfamiliar,.

May you look upon your life and your ministry with the eyes of God,

ever new and ever transforming.

May the God of NEWNESS be with you.

Sunday Morning

My morning starts with a big surprise - daily savings time begins today we have sprung forward.  My phone dutifully does the work telling me the correct time and it isn't until I am up for an hour that I realize I have "lost " an hour of sleep. Oh well, the promise then, of an afternoon nap.  I hope that happens.

I begin this day with listening to a novel by John Grisham to prepare myself for his talk at the Virginia Festical of the Book that is later this month.  And finally after an hour or so, I sit in my chair and listen to the "pray as you go" app. It begins with music and this idea:

My Sweet Jesus   Look with mercy on my lost soul.

Is my soul lost and wandering?

Is it content and at peace?"

Then time with the words of Paul in Ephesian:

God, rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead....raised us up

Immeasurable riches of his grace

By grace you have been saved

Created for good works 

And the music, the words, the questions, the turning toward God shifts something within me.  It does feel like God makes us alive.  As I begin this day in which I will soon be driving to a church, the duty of church work transforms into the joy and promise of  being with God's people.  I am created for a good work - which is to love.  To love my family, my friends, my church, everyone.  It is as simple and as hard as that.  But to start with God in the morning anchors my wandering soul and reminds me of my worth and my purpose.

The devotional also speaks to me today.  These are words of reality about this journey of faith.

"For our journey on earth, we must not expect too much sweetness and light.  We travel in hope which inevitable is ambiguous.  hope holds before us the promise of God's riches, but it does not spare us experiences of pain, separation and uncertainty.  In the end, hope wins."

The day begins.  I will go dry my hair, grab a breakfast bar, and get on the road.  In hope, in love.

My soul feels content and at peace.

 

Eternal Life

The most familiar verse in the Bible is John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life 

Many people have read that to say - believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven. As if this Christian business is about what happens after death. 

 This morning one of the scriptures in the devotional was John 17: :3  " And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

This verse is so helpful because it  shows that eternal life is really about life in the present - KNOWING God and ( through?) Jesus. Eternal life is living in gratitude and awareness of the blessings flowing through our lives.  Eternal life is also living in expectation of the guidance that comes as we "incline our ears" to hear God's voice or experience divine nudges. 

It is noon now as I write this and I have had already a day full of blessings.  I woke up a little worried because I had an electrician coming this afternoon at a time that might bump into my Friday pickleball.  How would I manage this?  And I had a new air conditioner installed in the morning and spiritual direction planned and a meeting with someone from the church.  How would this work?

And now all of it has happened and I felt like I was "in the flow."  The electrician called and came early, the air conditioner guys have come and gone, the spiritual direction happened a little late but it all worked out as well as the church meeting.  AND it turns out I am now available to take my granddaughter Addie to work later today so Audrey can get a full day's sleep. 

I have found that I experience "eternal life" when I engage in three spiritual practices

1. Reflection - looking back on a morning, a day, a week and seeing how pieces fit together, beauty and love emerged, healing happened.  Seeing God in the ordinary moments of my life.

2. Gratitude - knowing that God continues to bless me.  Blessings come in so many forms - emails and texts from friends, loving words, "God incidences, periods of unexpected refreshment, signs of beauty.

3. Guidance - those twinges or insights or nudges that encourage me to call someone, go somewhere, read something, see something, do something.  

This is the eternal life that I desire - trusting God's presence and loving care in the small things as well as the big ones.  I just have to trust, wait, look, pray, listen, and act as guided..  (None of these are easy and all are open to interpretation!) I am arrogant if I think I can "know" God.  But I do believe that this journey and these practices help me to trust a little more that- in the words of Julian of Norwich

'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

May it be so.

 

Behold the one beholding you......

.......And smiling

That is our God.  The one who loves us more than we can ever know.  The one who wants to be in relationship with us - that is to have faith.

I started listening to an audio book of Tattoos on the Heart by Father Boyle.  He is coming to Columbus through First Community Church and Audrey encouraged me to read this.  Father Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest who is the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, the world's largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program.  This book is stories from that ministry interwoven with theological reflections.  This quote - BEHOLD THE ONE BEHOLDING YOU AND SMILING- comes from his book.

Last night in Bible study we talked about the time that Jesus said to his disciples - who do you say that I am?  Peter gave the "correct" answer - you are the Messiah, the son of the living God.  At the same time, he did not really understand what kind of Messiah Jesus was going to be.  He probably could not grasp a Messiah who would humbly give himself to the authorities, die on a cross and be resurrected.

In the discussion last night we talked about the fact that however we describe Jesus or God - God is always more.  More than we can say and more than we can imagine.  I get the same sense as I listen to this book as Father Gregory Boyle loves and ministers to these gang members and shows them God's love and compassion.  

The devotional for today is about the mystery of faith  - that connection between us and God:

"Faith begins with the understanding that somehow it is important to you and to God that you know each other.  He cares.  You care.  Through all of the stories in the Bible runs the thread of this struggle to care.  Christian faith is an affirmation that because God cares about you, your life transcends time."

So, I begin this day understanding that God is real and more loving and compassionate than I can fully grasp. And God - the living God of all life is gazing upon this one part of creation - ME - with love and smiling. .  That love can change the way I spend this day, take care of myself, and reach out to others.  

Here is today's blessing

May you be conpanioned by the God of SERENITY.

May this God always make his presence known in your with a spirit of calm and confidence in the One who created you.

May you in turn be a peaceful presence to all you meet 

and may you insert peace into every situation you enter.

May the God of SERENITY be with you.

(Maxine Shonk)

The Lord Helps Me

In the Pray as you go App there was a reading from Isaiah 50 which contained this verse:

 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.

That is the message that God keeps giving me over and over.  Trust me, I am helping you. What flows from this thought is: stop worrying, stop trying to control every outcome, stop managing and.....trust me.

I am writing this in my office at Gender Road Christian Church at 2 o clock in the afternoon.  Usually I write this in the morning, but today I got into a longer than usual conversation with Audrey and took my granddaughter Maggie to school and then just drove to church to spend the day here.

We have a worship service at 12:30 and I was helping to plan it and Hannah, our ministerial intern was "preaching."  There is nothing I like better than planning worship which I usually do not get to do here at this church.  But today Pastor John is out of town and Hannah and I were able to work together on it.  I had already arranged for Bobby to sing "Come to Jesus" a Chris Rice song that always brings me to tears. Yesterday I had found a prayer meditation that I liked a lot and wanted to use that and then suggested a Taize song "Jesus, Remember Me."

Sitting here now afterward, I am awed by the service that came together.  The songs created a meditative spirit in the sanctuary and my reading was essentially about letting go and trusting God.  Hannah ended up doing a lectio divina in which she read the scripture (John 3: 14-21) five times.  I found the whole thing to be extremely moving.   I keep reading, teaching and living this truth - God is love  - which is lived out in this: The Lord Helps Me.  I don't know how to describe how I feel at times guided by God - to find resources, to speak, to listen, to keep my mouth shut, to trust . 

One of the verses of today's text is the familiar John 3:16 -" For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life."   In Bible study yesterday we talked about how the word "believe" here could be better translated "trusts in."  It is not an intellectual belief - but a trusting God with our life - believing that God is our helper, that God is on our side, that God loves us.

And so, on this afternoon I sit in gratitude for the Word of God and the people of God and the spirit of God at work in my life and in this world.

Amen

Here is the reading from today

Blessing in the Shape of a Cross

Press this blessing
into your palms—
right, left—
and you will see
how it leaves its mark,

how it imprints itself
into your skin,
how the lines of it
meet
and cross

as if signaling you
to the treasure
that has been in
your grasp
all along.

Except that these riches
you will count
not by what you hold
but by what you release,
by what you lose,
by what falls from
your open hands.

—Jan Richardson

.  

Wait for the Lord

That is the song that plays as I begin my time with God

Wait For the Lord. His day is near. 

Wait for the Lord  Be strong.  Take Heart

I sit and wait.  With all that is within me.  I have moments of sadness as I live alone, times of great expectation and hope  as I wait for the end of the pandemic and spring, and great concern for others in my sphere.

Last night I watched some of the interview with Harry and Meghan - an old old story of family dysfunction, lack of communication, racism, distance, and deep hurt.  I sit in prayer for people I know and love - who are living in estranged families,  desperate circumstances because of physical disease, mental illness or addiction. 

 The text today was about Jesus preaching in Nazareth and being rejected.  And he could do no more. Actually they tried to throw him off a cliff.  As I pray for the people in my life, I pray that they will accept his presence and his love.  It is all about love ultimately.

This morning I am aware of the gift of prayer that we all have.  There are so many times that I can see pain and hurt and can do nothing.  My "advice" is fruitless and I just feel inadequate.  But I can pray and lift them up to God.  I can do that.

So, I wait for the Lord.  I hope I am walking with the Lord.  And I pray and pray and pray - for others, for this world, for my family, for myself.

Life is hard, but God is good.

The cancel culture

NOT

The Lenten journey is deeply opposed to what we see in our culture these days - the cancel culture.  This morning spent time with this passage from I Corinthians 1

 

 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Here it is in the Message - 

 
^22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

 This cancel culture where people's pasts come to define them and then they are rejected is the antithesis of the grace of Jesus.  And surely, some may call it absurd.  There are times in which I am faced with words spoken in the past by me or actions that I took that were - ill advised, unthinking, impulsive and in a word - WRONG.  When these thoughts and memories come up - it is not at all comfortable, but I believe  it is necessary.

What God keeps showing me this Lent is the reality of the humility at the heart of the cross of Jesus.  It is a path willingly taken in which he chooses to humble himself in every way and trust God's presence and power.  For us, one path of humility is the recognition of sin and then the receiving of grace. The grace is real and at times in my life - has been almost palpable.  It seems like  shame dissipates in the face of the light and love of Jesus.  It is the path of transformation for all of us.

The cancel culture is really good at showing people their mistakes - but not so good at any kind of awareness of change of heart or mind.  There is just shame and rejection. We cancel others from a position of our power (human wisdom)  and not with understanding of the human condition and the ways in which we all can be led astray and just plain ignorant.  

What I like in this passage I quoted is the Message's words:  "But to us who are personally called by God himself - both Jews and Greeks - Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one."

I believe that I have been personally called - called by name and I also believe that all people are.  And in this relationship with the living Christ I will never be cancelled.  Thank God.  I will only be loved, forgiven, strengthened and guided.  Again, thank God!

Christ crucified is an image that is profound and I imagine I will spend the rest of my life still pondering the mystery of it all.  But on this Sunday - the third Sunday of Lent - I am grateful for the gift of this journey. 

May the God of FORGIVENESS be with you,

receiving you, loving you in your weaknesses, holding you in your brokenness.

May you hear God's words to you:

"who you are in this moment is enough.  Let me love you as you are."

May this forgiving God be with you in all your relationships and in each of your endeavors,

knowing that the best reason to forgive is haveing been forgiven.

May you be blessed with the Spirit of FORGIVENESS.

(mAXINE sHONK)