Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are Abbie Johnson Taylor and Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me.
This past week, on May 14, in fact, Christians celebrated the ascension of Jesus into heaven. I been thinking a lot lately about what that meant. He was leaving a very fragile seed, His church, to blossom and grow in hostile soil. He knew–he had to know–we’d screw it up. He knew we’d disappoint him, likely on a daily basis, assuredly many times a day. And yet, he let go, asking us to co-create with Him down here while He did whatever He needed to do from on high.
I often wonder why in the world He’d do that. And the only thing I can come up with is that if we are going to reign with Him in Heaven, we need to learn how to do that on Earth. Now, me, I think he could just have a heavenly school where we could bypass all the stuff that happens down here. But it seems He disagrees, and He definitively wins!
I’ve been battling a problem with our bank for a couple weeks. This week I was finally able to move things forward, and I decided to simply let events happen. There really isn’t much I can do. It’s a mixed bag. It feels good to finally quit hassling with it on the day-to-day, but not very good knowing I’m not in control. I didn’t give up control particularly willingly. The bank did that for me. Jesus, on the other hand, did surrender control to us. Does He intervene on our behalf? Assuredly. But He also gave us free will, and in large part, allows us to exercise it, whether or not our choices are those He would want us to make.
Often times I hear Christians complain–and I’ve done it a number of times myself–why doesn’t God just tell us what He wants from us? All I can do is answer that He already tried that w/the Israelites in the Old Testament. We all know how well that turned out. He appeared to them in a cloud by day, in fire by night. They knew what He wanted from them. They worshipped a golden calf instead, and He at last established a new covenant with humankind by means of His death on the cross.
Most people who walk this earth won’t be remembered long. All we can hope for is that some small action of ours, something we said or did, will turn someone toward God, and that they in turn did likewise. Often we don’t even know when we’ve done that because the action to us seemed so insignificant. And maybe that’s why we have to learn here on earth that the one who is faithful in very small things is also faithful in much, because sometimes that small thing can turn into something very big, while we’re none the wiser.
Luke 16:10 puts it thus: “Suppose you can be trusted with something very little. Then you can also be trusted with something very large. But suppose you are not honest with something very little. Then you will also not be honest with something very large.” NIV
I pray that I can be more like Jesus, doing the best I can and then be content to put it in God’s hands, because that is, after all, where all my hopes and dreams will ultimately come to fruition.
You know what happens when you forget to charge your cell phone. You can’t call anyone, you can’t text anyone, you can’t play your music while you’re on the go. It’s not nearly as earth-shattering as some would have you believe, (there are those who don’t even have a cell phone, after all), but it can be disconcerting at best, and life-threatening at worst.
Just like a cell phone needs a connection to power in order to recharge, people need connection as well. Monday is the first meeting w/my Word Weavers’ Writer’s group, called Page 53, where I’ll actually be fully participating. Last month I kind of just sat back and observed, obeying what my spiritual dad Rev. Lloyd Mattson used to say frequently, “Never miss an opportunity to shut up.”
I also joined a Facebook group this week called Biblical Fiction Aficionados, and I posted to them today about my audio book offering group members a free copy via a private link.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool, 100% confirmed, introvert. This sort of thing is very hard for me. But I know that connection and community is the key to growth.
Gen 2:18 says: “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” NIV
Though the context indicates God said this about men, it’s equally applicable to women as well. The church, indeed, is described as Christ’s body. Those of us who call ourselves Christians acknowledge that we are part of His body, and therefore connected to every other Christian. So, hard or not, it’s necessary, and I’m sure my life will be blessed by these new connections. I hope I can in some small way enrich their lives as well.
Lord, help me hear your voice through the new friends I’m making, and help me speak your truth to them as well. Thank you. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are Abbie Johnson Taylor and
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me,
That first day of the week, a few women walked the streets of Jerusalem. There was a hint of gray in the sky. A rooster crowed. A dove cooed. A dog barked. The women bore a heavy burden. The spices and ointment they carried, although weighty, seemed light compared to the spiritual burden. The man they loved, the one whom they believed was the Messiah, the foretold one of the Torah who would liberate their kingdom from the Romans, had instead died on a criminal’s cross. Their job now was to perform one last service they couldn’t finish before the arrival of the Sabbath–the anointing of His body.
“How will we roll the stone away?” they asked each other as they trudged along. “It’ll be far too heavy for us to do it ourselves.”
Like so many of our worst fears, they found it had been taken care of. When they arrived, the tomb was empty. The burial clothes were folded neatly. Two men stood outside, dressed in dazzling white.
Matt 28:
5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.
6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
The news still echos down the centuries. “Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!” And many gave their lives, sometimes in horrifying ways, because they would not deny the truth of that seemingly improbable sentence.
The resurrection is the central pillar of our Christian faith. Without it, Paul tells us exactly where we stand.
1 Cor 15:
14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
If there was no resurrection, we have believed a lie, we have told a lie, we are still in our sins, and death has the final word. May as well eat and drink for tomorrow we die. There is no hope.
If, however, the story is true, then every year we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, we rejoice in the living hope we have in Him. May you be blessed with the unspeakable joy His resurrection brings to the heart and soul of every believer, and may we tell it to others w/love and rejoicing. Christ has risen! He has risen indeed! Praise be to God!
It was 4 in the afternoon. It looked more like midnight, not just because of the physical darkness, which was so thick it felt like you could touch and taste it, but because of the spiritual darkness, the hopelessness, that engulfed many of the onlookers still standing near the cross. The man they had hoped would wrest the kingdom of Israel from the Romans and restore it to its rightful owners, now hung limp and bloody, nails fastening His hands and feet to the rough hewn wood. Their hopes were forever shattered. The next day would be darker still, for those nearby would wake up to realize that the rest of their lives would be exactly like this.
For them, there was no concept of a resurrection. There was just the shattered pieces of their hopes and dreams. Evil had triumphed.
Those who’d hoped in Jesus that day witnessed the two darkest days in history. But death didn’t triumph. The stone rolled away. The tomb opened. Jesus rose.
Meanwhile, the world held its collective breath. Would God the Father find His Son’s sacrifice acceptable, raise Him from death, and call the debt of sin paid?
On that good Friday, Sunday seemed an eternity away.
But on Sunday morning, the women returned from the tomb breathlessly. The stone had been rolled back. The tomb was desserted. All that remained were the burial wrappings. And while Jesus’s followers still didn’t understand fully what had taken place, something minuscule stirred in each of their spirits, the hope that somehow, against all odds, He was alive!
It’s hard living in the constant in-between of a world where, although evil has been defeated, it has not yet been entirely subdued. We wrestle daily w/the evil all around us, from minor annoyances to shattered hopes and dreams and lives. But we know there will come a shining day when all things will be brought under God’s authority, and all evil will be banished. Till then, we cling to the hope of the resurrection. And we agree w/those 2 devils. They had indeed been had.
I’m going to keep this very short. I have a cold that’s causing just about every opening in my face, save my ears, to ooze. Both my mouth and head hurt. How that happened when the temperature outside is a scorching 105dg F is totally beyond me, but it did. Despite that, I was able to finish my audiobook this week w/help from Eleven Labs AI, and it is now available on this website (on a post stuck to the front page), as well as pending review on Spotify and Google Play. Hopefully the bureaucratic red tape won’t entangle me too much longer. There is also a sample available on this site for your listening pleasure. You can purchase it now or wait till Apr 1-5, at which time I’ll be offering it for free, both on this site (and, if the Lord and powers that be prove willing, the other platforms mentioned above as well.
Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me, and Abbie Johnson Taylor
Lent, for those who may be unaware, is an approximately 7-week long season in the Christian faith where we commemorate Jesus’s journey to the cross. It’s often associated with giving up things, especially enjoyable things, like candy and alcoholic beverages. Those of the Roman Catholic faith are also instructed to abstain from eating meat each Friday of Lent.
The death of Jesus on the cross is one of the saddest, if not the saddest, event in human history. So why do I view the commemoration of His journey to the cross as a blessing?
I view Lent as a blessing because it serves as a reminder of how much God loves each and every one of us. as human beings, we all make mistakes and fall short of what we know we should be. And a lot of us are pretty hard on ourselves when we don’t measure up, either to the standards of others or our own. Unfortunately, we often tend to project our negative feelings about ourselves onto God, and believe he has those same negative feelings toward us as we have about ourselves. Jesus’s journey to the cross is a stark reminder of just how inaccurate those beliefs are.
Jesus is God’s Son. He is equal to God. He created all things, in partnership with the Father and the Holy spirit.
John 1-4 says: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Even though Jesus was God, and He could do anything He pleased, including staying in Heaven forever, He chose to become a man, with all the limitations that living in a body impose. And above all that, He chose to die a criminal’s death, a death by crucifixion, which is one of the most painful ordeals a person can endure. And He did that to pay our debt of sin. God the Father didn’t force Him. He did it of His own accord. He did it so we could live eternally with Him in Heaven if we but accepted His gift of forgiveness and eternal life. He did it because He loved us that much.
So here’s a suggestion. Instead of giving up sweets or booze or other pleasures for Lent, when you start thinking of yourself negatively, bring to mind instead how much God loves you, and think about that instead. Who knows, you might just decide it’s an endeavor worth pursuing all year round. And just as a reminder of what Christ gave up to come here, check out Job 38 or Revelation 4-6.
Easter is less than a month away now. This time of year, my thoughts always drift toward the cross–& then, even more importantly, the resurrection. It’s one thing to read about the Resurrection in the Bible. It’s another thing to feel it. This is a story about something that happened over 40 years ago (REALLY???) that helped me do just that.
In August of 1993, my husband was about to enter seminary at Texas Christian University Bryte Divinity School in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a hospital chaplain. To be able to afford that, we had to move to Fort Worth and live in student housing. Our daughter had to leave her friends in Irving. We also had to part with our cat as Bryte housing had a very strict “no pets” policy. The transition was proving difficult.
Thus it was that shortly after moving in, Karl and I found ourselves advocating (begging and groveling)? before Barb, the head of student housing to allow daughter Amanda to have a pet turtle. I have no idea whether the argument regarding the difficult transition or, “even if the turtle got out, how much trouble could it actually cause?” was the deciding factor, but Barb, albeit somewhat reluctantly, agreed to grant our request.
Although we could ill afford to do so, we were in the Pets Mart shortly after Labor Day hunting the perfect shelled companion. We found one whose eyes looked clear, the shell was hard, and who was making its wishes to escape its enclosure known. The shorter tail led us to believe it was a female. The pet store clerk warned us that she might refuse to eat once we got her home, because of new surroundings, but, in fact, that proved to be a non-issue.
She’d crawl toward us and stand up in her enclosure when she wanted food. When we let her out, she’d often come to us and let us pick her up. She also seemed to enjoy exploring the apartment. But we learned very quickly that when she didn’t want to be found, she was queen of the art of hiding. Heidi seemed like the only appropriate name for her. And as time went on, though we never thought it possible, we grew to love Ms. Heidi turtle.
Trouble in paradise started in November. Her eyes became swollen. She wheezed when she breathed. She stopped eating. We took her to a vet who prescribed vitamins and antibiotics, which had to be injected at home. Despite being ill, the strength she demonstrated fighting her injections was surprisingly Herculean. It’s not a characteristic that readily comes to mind when thinking about a turtle, but when this turtle decided she didn’t want to do something, we quickly learned to be prepared for a monumental struggle. During one particularly fraught episode, Karl evidently hit her sciatic nerve, which caused her to hiss loudly and let go a smell that sent Amanda and I choking, holding our noses, and fleeing, while hapless Karl sat there holding the equally hapless tortoise.
On Thanksgiving Day we fed her some sweet potatoes, as the vet said the vitamin A would help. Shortly after, she threw them up, and Karl yelled in horror as he realized the vomited sweet potatoes were moving. The next day we were able to get a vet appointment to de worm her.
We were hoping that she’d kick the respiratory infection and start eating after that, but it was proving to be tougher than anyone anticipated. Round after round of antibiotics and antihistamines followed, which resulted in only slight and temporary improvements.
Tragedy struck in January 1994. Karl’s twin brother was hospitalized with lung cancer for the final time. Karl had to fly to Rhode Island to be with him and make final arrangements. Kip died on Jan 31, and Karl returned home shortly thereafter. Heidi held her own while he was gone, but seemed to just give up once he came back.
The last vet we went to said he was unable to do anything more for Heidi. When we requested a referral, he suggested Dr. Kendric, who served the Fort Worth zoo part time as one of their herpetologists.
We called and made an appointment for Feb 10. We were immediately impressed. Not only was he a veritable fountain of knowledge, but he actually, like us, loved turtles! He’d had a pet tortoise that died while he was in vet school. He said it broke his heart. He took blood, and we made an appointment for Valentine’s day, as he was sure he’d have the results by then. Because Karl had an exam that day, I went alone. The lab report was not good. Heidi was in liver failure. The worms, the drugs, the confinement and poor nutrition at the pet shop had likely all contributed. The inevitable had arrived. I had to tell him we couldn’t afford this.
I was shocked when he asked if we would allow him to bury her on his land.
“I’ll go one better than that,” I replied. “If you think you can help her, then please do so, and you can keep her as your pet.”
“You’d let me do that?” His voice was a mixture of joy and surprise.
“Only give me your word you won’t let her suffer,” I said. He assured me I had that.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said as I was leaving. I thanked him. It felt empty to be going home without Heidi. In just 6 months, she’d found her way into both our home and our hearts.
I’m a doctor. I know about liver failure. It’s bad in humans. It had to be worse for animals, just because of the dearth of treatment options. Neither Karl nor I were optimistic about Heidi’s chances.
As days went by, I increasingly assumed that Heidi was dead, and that Dr. Kendrick simply didn’t have the time or desire to call and convey the bad news. More than once I picked up the phone to call and inquire, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had, after all, basically surrendered her. I really didn’t have the right.
It was St. Patrick’s day when the phone rang. We were just sitting down to dinner. I was nearest to it, so I answered.
“This is Dr. Kendrick over at Richland Hills Animal Clinic. I want to know if you’d like to come pick up Heidi.”
For a moment I was speechless. “But our agreement was that you’d keep her,” was all I could say. “We can’t afford to pay you.”
“And you will not attempt to do so. The only reason Heidi survived was because of the love you showed her. I want to restore her back to you. I’ve been practicing awhile now. I haven’t seen anyone as passionate about a turtle as yall. She belongs with you, unless you don’t feel you can do that.”
Karl and I both agreed we could absolutely do that, and he went to the clinic next day to pick up Heidi. The staff said she did something she’d never done before while she was at the clinic. When she heard Karl’s voice, she stuck her neck as far out of her shell as she could.
I got a glimpse then about how the disciples must have felt at Christ’s resurrection. Words couldn’t describe the joy. Having her back with us doing all the little things she’d done previously mended a whole in our family. Death did not have the last word. Life and love could still triumph.
Easter meant a great deal to me that year, and it has every year since. Heidi is the grand dam of our animal companions and still climbs the gate of her cage when she wants food or an excursion. She still struggles mightily when she doesn’t want us to do something for her. And she still occasionally sticks her neck out to be petted. The account of Scripture told me what happened that Easter day. A female Ornate Western Box Turtle taught me how it felt. And I will always remember a veterinarian who, despite eating the charges for a month of services, put compassion before money, donned his fighting spirit, looked death in the eye, and said “not today.”
In the final analysis, resurrection is simply God’s way of letting us know that hope, faith, and love never die. I’m reminded of that each time I walk past her cage.
The picture at the top of the post is of my nearly 10-year-old neutered male kitty we call Sunny. It fits his personality to a tee. He might be blind, but he always seems curious about someone new. And he’s such a shepherd when one of us gets sick!
He asked me to pick him up the other day. He does that by standing on his hind legs and putting his forepaws on my knees. He’s not a real touchy-feely kitty, but occasionally he likes it, and this was 1 of those occasions.
As I was holding him, I got to thinking about how different our worldviews were. He comes up to my ankles, so mostly what he sees, if anything, is down low. He uses whiskers for navigation. I know he can conceptualize things like his food and treats, but how he does that without language is beyond me. But as he lays in my lap purring his rumbling symphony and kneading my knee with his claws, and I massage his back, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt our feelings run very deep for one another.
How can it be, I wonder, that two beings with such widely divergent world views can love one another so much, and yet many humans despite far more similar ways of looking at the world can view things so differently–and worse, with so much vitriole toward those who disagree.
As we embark on this season of Lent, I think again of some of Jesus’s unanswered prayers. If I would ask most Christians about that, they’d immediately think of His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. But there is another, found in John 17:20-21.
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
The sad truth is we as Christians are hardly one. I question whether most people who don’t share our faith can look at us and say something special’s going on. Yet we have so much more in common than we have differences. We love Jesus. We believe in Baptism, though the form differs. We believe in Jesus’s crucifixion, and most of us believe in His resurrection. And we believe one day we’ll go to Heaven–and yes–meet those with whom we disagree.
This Lenten season one of my prayers will be that we as Christians will find some of that unity and love despite such different world views, just like Sunny Kitty and me. I’m asking for God’s help with that. Maybe all of us can do so as well. We sure could use a lot more love around here.
Dec. 14 is the 3rd Sunday of advent. The candle for this Sunday is called the joy candle, and, in some settings, the Shepherds’ Candle, because of the joy the shepherds felt on hearing the announcement of the birth of the Messiah. Rather than being purple or violet, it is sometimes pink, which is viewed by some to be a less solemn color than those other two colors, which traditionally represent royalty.
I’ve been asking myself a lot this week exactly what joy is. One conclusion I’ve come to is that, although many equate it with happiness, they aren’t the same. Happiness comes from something that happens to you, some external event, like getting a gift you wanted or winning the lottery. It’s no coincidence that “happiness” and “happen” share the same root.
Joy, on the other hand, doesn’t depend on circumstance. Indeed, the word is often uttered in the same or adjacent breaths in conjunction with things and events that are anything but joyful. Rather, it’s a feeling of peace, contentment, and knowing we belong.
David, in Psalm 51:12, which is a response to the prophet Nathan confronting him about his infidelity with Bathsheba, says,
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Just a few verses later, he says:
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
And in Hebrews 12:2b, it says:
“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Joy endures despite circumstances. It’s given by God. Think of the shepherds who were told about the birth of Messiah before most others. We tend to think highly of shepherds today, but In Jesus’s time, they were scorned and looked down upon. They tended to smell like sheep, they tended not to be as clean, mostly because they lived outdoors–they were very much perceived like the “gypsies” of today. Yet they were the first to hear the angel choirs sing.
Joy endures because Jesus overcame the world, and with Him beside us, so can we. He made us His children, and nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:35-39).
During this advent season, we prepare to celebrate the birth of Messiah on Christmas day. But we also prepare our hearts for the time He’ll come again, and reunite all creation with Himself. We look forward to that time with great joy. And we also rejoice that our Messiah is with us now, even though invisible.
I am joining fellow author Lynda Lambert on her Sunday Blessings Blog Journey. Every Sunday we’ll be posting about a blessing in our lives. You can read her blog
This upcoming Sunday is the 2nd in the 4 Sundays of advent, and today we light the candle of peace. Peace is one of those blessings that’s really hard to define, but we know it when we see it, and even more when we feel it.
The image is of Rembrandt’s painting of Jesus calming the storm on Lake Gallilee. In 1 sense, there’s almost something commical about the whole scene. The disciples are struggling against the waves, likely screaming and soiling themselves and their boats because of the body’s very predictable responses to incredible fear and dread, while Jesus snores in the back of the boat, seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him. I would suggest he’d need to be sleeping extremely soundly, because these violent storms on the Sea of Gallilee are known to typically occur in winter, when the water temperature is about 68 degrees. I’ve gone swimming in Lake Michigan in the summer when the water temperature hovered around that, and folks, let me tell you, it was *cold!*
When someone finally manages to rouse him and asks whether he cares if they’re all killed, he simply gets up and utters “Peace, be still!” Mark 4:39, ESV. And the lakes throes ceased, replaced by a mirror-like quiet.
I’ve looked back over my life a number of times when my absolute worst fears never came true. I was all flustered and worried & in a dither, while Jesus sat back and said, “Girl, just cool it. I’ve got this!” He says it to us daily. “I’m in control, and don’t you or nature or illness or death ever forget it!” Sadly, the one most likely to forget it is me.
Here’s the first verse of a song I wrote about that scripture. If I can find the tape, I’ll put it up.
A small boat being swamped on the Lake of Gallilee The disciples struggling hard against the waves, And they woke Jesus saying, “Don’t you care if we are killed?” And he rose up and uttered, “Peace! Be still!”
“Peace be still, don’t you know I am ever in control And I guard each step that you trod. When the road of life’s dark, and it seems you’ve lost your way– Peace, be still, and know that I’m your God. Peace, be still, and know that I’m your God.”
Mark 4:35-41
I really appreciate Lynda telling me about her project, I appreciate her welcoming me to join her, and I wish you God’s peace throughout this holy season and throughout your lives the whole year long.
