Siblings Many

One God

Friday, October 4, 2024

We crawled out of the soup eons ago,

what for?

Psalm 119:82

My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?’

Hebrews 4:16

Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Words of Grace For Today

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The Siblings

Two brothers:

One ate oatmeal for breakfast every morning, sometimes before bed as well. Slim, fit, though he worked little with his hands, arms, legs, and body. His was a labour of the mind, teaching students in high school, mentoring them on how to live in this wide world of challenges unending, as he provided the basics for them to become responsible citizens of Canada.

The other never disclosed his diet though it obviously was always sufficient, for his body was rotund. He also worked with his mind, a farmer of a large operation. And he worked with his hands, arms, legs and feet, labouring hard at various times during the year to raise crops and animals to feed many, many people well.

Two sisters:

One, solid and sturdy on her feet, worked endlessly to secure a safe and secure life for herself and her five children. The costs of raising children was immense, and her securing sufficient income was always on her mind, always dictated her decisions. She drove her husband harder than she drove herself, for he shared her focus, to earn enough money to secure a good life for himself and his family. Until he could not anymore, for the lies he had to tell in order to continue in his job were too much to bear. He switched occupations and started a thriving store, making more money than he ever could have before. But his body and his mind could not keep up with the pressure and after a year of severe sleep deprivation added to the stress of his own and his wife’s demands on him he succumbed to the depression that had haunted him since he was a teenager and he killed himself.

As a widow this sister continued working the store and her own job, letting the children raise themselves. As she approached 55 years old she looked back on her life, and forward to her future and she succumbed to deep depression. Her oldest daughter had murdered at least two people, and gotten away with it. Her to older sons had left home as soon as they could and never talked to her. Her younger daughter in her late 20s, still fully dependent on her, had followed her father’s exit from life. Her youngest son stayed in touch. Everything he did was about earning more money, and he was fundamentally unhappy, trying anything from travel, to drugs, to sex, to danger to try to find some meaning to life.

This widow’s sister was in comparison frail of body, though she had been graceful in her youth. Most certainly beauty had passed her by and she made little attempt to cover the awkward mismatched features she’d been born with. She had excelled at school, for it was the only thing she could do well. Music and math, history and languages, hard sciences and psychology, and even religion engrossed her. She had earned multiple Ph.ds. Her classes at a small university were always overfilled. She engaged her students, pushing them to not only master the subject before them, but the questions of life that lay beneath it all, and their place in the whole project of life.

She was still happily married to her first love, also a professor, he in philosophy. They had two children who had families of their own. Each made their way around the world on projects, one as a medical volunteer with various NGOs, the other as an organizer, speaker, and counsellor to leaders and vulnerable children alike.

The focus of this sister’s life, and her families’ lives, was to share God’s gracious generosity in any and every way they could with the people most in need. No one was wealthy in the family. More than a few times the children had come to their parents for help, sometimes for money. Lately the parents had gone to each of their children for help, organizing a project to educate and inspire people of all backgrounds to reach out with compassion to people in the greatest need around the world, starting in their backyards, with the homeless people in their city.

This year for Thanksgiving the second sister and her husband, with both children and their whole families, travelled to Tanzania to help start building a new medical clinic that would eventually become a full fledged teaching hospital outside the capital, Dodoma.

The first sister, with more than 8 million dollars in investments and assets, worked at her store, and exhausted spent the evening at home, taking a phone call from her youngest, asking for more money, this time to buy a new motorcycle to travel with some friends somewhere to the south. She transferred $80k into his account, sat on the couch in her fancy living room and a huge emptiness engulfed her, and she wept for hours like she had never wept before. The next morning she woke up feeling worse than if she’d had a hangover, which she’d had plenty of in her life.

Fraternal Twins, a boy and a girl

Fraternal Twins, a boy and a girl, were born yesterday to a distant cousin of the brothers and the sisters, in a small town near the SK border. Their parents attend church irregularly, aren’t really driven to do anything they do not need to, but they get by on their income living a rather simple if not poverty consumed lifestyle.

Where will each of these twins find themselves in 20 years? In 30 years? In 55 years? Will they find meaning and joy in life? Or will they pursue life selfishly only to find life meaninglessness easily engulfs them?

Could we make a difference if we knew these twins, these sisters, these brothers? Does God equip us to share humility, purpose, joy, reasons to give thanks, and grace with those most in need?

Who are we?

To Thirst

And Receive the Living Water, each day.

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

The Living Water Moves,

Often Wildly,

And Is Seldom,

though sometimes,

Still

Isaiah 49:10

they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.

John 4:15

The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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While I work physically and focused making preparations to survive another winter, harder, colder, bleaker … or easier than previous winters

I often forget to drink enough.

Alcohol it isn’t of course. Can’t afford it, money-wise or other-wise.

Never like surrendering the clear senses my brain has provided me my life long. Why sacrifice it to … to what? What would alcohol provide?

But good water, yes!

Sweet apple juice for a sugar boast, yes!

Hot tea, yes!

Always, no matter what the day will bring or demand of me, I begin with the living Word, the Body of life and hope, and the Blood of sacrificial love.

There my thirst for the essence of life is quenched, the living water flows through all those thirsts that could rob me of life abundant,

and

…

Well, it’s a simple, sacred, overwhelming blessing

to start each day so.

How will this day begin for you?

Words, Words, Words

Destructive, Precious Words?

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Words can point us to the Light,

the Light destroys

and gives LIFE!

Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Luke 2:19

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Words,

Words.

It’s just words, right?

Words given weight over our lives,

when there is no such need.

It’s just words, right?!

Right!

…

Except –

What we say and write can be more powerful than the worst weapons on earth, or the best physicians with the best medicines and procedures.

Words

reflect the thoughts and hearts of us all,

of us few,

of us too few, who actually know how to think clearly.

What we say and write can be most powerful.

Sure –

Words can destroy.

And then –

Words can heal a broken heart.

Words can heal a broken mind.

May we find the words that give life amidst all the evil that permeates creation and us.

Everything

Is Good!? NOT AT ALL!

Friday, September 27, 2024

Some Things, Some Moments, Some People,

Maybe,

But Everything is Good?!?

Com’on, Get Real!

Isaiah 65:18

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

1 Timothy 4:4-5

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Who can say that everything is good!?

Evil abounds.

Rottenness corrupts even the strongest parts of creation, and people most of all.

(Maybe we are the weakest part of creation?)

So how can all be good?

Except neither writer says everything is good.

Both say that what God creates is good.

Then we go and mess it up, making it evil.

So how to not do that?

Probably, given all that is written and experienced through the ages, that is not possible.

Yet today we have the possibility of giving God thanks,

and in giving thanks we help somethings retain their goodness that God created,

even the goodness that God created in us.

So give thanks

for All that God

has created good!

Who

Will Rescue Us?

Monday, September 16, 2024

And The Skies Run Red With Their Blood,

As God Lets Evil

Take Itself To It’s Own Bloody Death?

Isaiah 50:7

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame

Matthew 14:30

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

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Words of Grace For Today

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The OT reading for this Sunday Jeremiah 11:18-20 overlaps in theme with this verse:

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.
But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter.
And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

…

So it is time to ask:

And who is out to get you?

By guile and deceit

in secret

and hidden ways

so that those uninitiated to such devious ways will not see or suspect or ever know

of the evil that is worked against you?

Oh, you say, there is no such effort made against me.

But then how would you know?

And what is all this about polarization of peoples, infiltration of social media to effect election outcomes, hate created fear motivating voters, world domination by fascist dictators, war hungry leaders hiding in war their failing support at home, the economy played for the benefit of the already rich to get richer and the already poor to get poorer (if there is such a thing for many) and for the middle class to sink, sink, sink closer to poverty?

Are these not already a few powerful manipulating what can be to send us closer to our deaths?

Are you paying attention?

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But God is with us. And we will see our enemies destroy themselves.

Thanks

For the flow?

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Welcome to Paradise,

is it the Wilderness?

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

John 6:32

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Poverty is a wonderful lesson in humility,

or so they say,

Those who are not poor.

Thankfully the food bank is a steady and good supply of most basic foods and some others,

actually some very odd food that I’d never try or eat if I didn’t get them there.

Take Cookies and Cream Oatmeal.

A treat in a breakfast food.

Well I suppose they’ve made and sold lots of sugar cereals for decades, so why not this, too?

With

all

this

food

I easily forget

how hard it was

before

the food bank.

Not that I forget (life is too hard) how much God provides.

Every morning I thank God for everything that keeps me alive, and it’s more than just enough.

Lately there’s been so much meaningful labour

it’s hard to keep up

as winter is coming

and autumn is not that long

And there’s still wood to start collecting.

But,

little by little

a thing here and a thing there gets done

and

I start to think

I may even be ready, for winter,

‘God willing and the creek nor rising’.

So today

first the thanks,

then the celebration,

then the meal

then

flat out work

if the rain is not too much or

the smoke too thick.

And how is your day shaped? With thanks, remembering who supplies all that keeps you alive, celebration, meal, and work?

Or is it something else.

Whatever, may it be blessed,

and may you remember who blesses it,

even if you live in the land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’

Costly

Grace

Friday, September 13, 2024

We may think we are alone,

But God is with us,

even in the solitude of the ice,

saving us by Grace.

Psalm 17:7

Wondrously show your steadfast love, O saviour of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

1 Peter 4:14

If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

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Words of Grace For Today

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God’s saves, graciously, and sends us out to be the hands of God’s saving grace for others. Our adversaries may revile us, but that is only part of the cost of being the hands that do Grace.

In a Word: Walking Partners

After her last miscarriage and hysterectomy, that left Henry and her childless for sure, Mary became a marathon runner. She was in great shape so it came as an unexpected shock when she died of a massive heart attack.

Two years later, out of the blue, Gwen, a member at his church, showed up at Henry’s door, knowing from her own loss the inescapable loneliness of surviving one’s spouse, and knowing that the Holy Spirit saved her and kept saving her as she shared that Grace with others. She asked Henry – he was old enough to be her father – to take a walk with her. In a word, they became walking partners. Named, it became the definition of what they gave to each other. It was not always easy, but they sacrificed a bit to make it work.

Gillian’s Safety-Net

Gillian, as a new mother, struggles with sleep deprivation and poverty. Today there just is no money for milk for the three kids, or diapers for the baby. She had already looked in all the places they put money for a rainy day. But there’d been too many rainy days lately.

Then to her surprise there’s a knock on the door. An old man from church, Henry, stood there, saying he knows it can be tough. He’d helped with his nieces and nephews. He offers to watch the kids for a half hour. Grateful, Gillian disappears into the bedroom and falls asleep. She wakes two hours later. Henry’s still there. He’s had groceries delivered, milk and diapers included. There’s even fish and chips for the kids’ supper, and a microwave meal for her and her husband, Michael, who is due home in an hour. Henry says good bye and hands her an envelop with two $50 dollar bills in it, and says, “If ever you haven’t enough for the essentials, my card is in there, call. I can always help out without noticing the extra expense. I’m not rich, but I have more than enough each month. I’m your safety-net.”

Grocery Delivery In A Word

It’s just a word, but the ‘grocery delivery’ Henry arranged for Gillian was not possible online thing three decades ago – so this is how it happened.

Henry, needing to change the baby’s diaper, found the last one. So he looked around, made a list, and called Gwen, his walking partner. Gwen took a break from work at her car dealership, went shopping for the list that Henry gave her over the phone, plus a few things she grabbed from her experience raising her three young kids. Henry tried to pay her for them but Gwen said she didn’t need it, it was her contribution.

Grandma Gillian

Gillian, now a grandma, knows about the cost of grace. Her husband, Michael, died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver when their youngest was in High School. Times always were and still are tight. She volunteers two times a week at the food bank, and patrols the streets for 4 hours when it’s either real cold in the winter or blistering hot in the summer, to help mostly homeless people find shelter.

The Prices Paid

What Gillian never knew was Henry gave up one meal every third day to have a bit saved up for her rainy days. It wasn’t often, but she had asked once or twice a year as long as the kids were at home.

What Henry never knew was Gwen went in debt helping him and others, eventually having to sell her car dealership to pay off her debt. She retired in poverty, knowing she’d helped as many people as possible after her husband, Frank, had died of cancer in their 40s.

Walking with Henry was her one constant, a costly joy, for she lost out on more than a few opportunities to make a sale by leaving to walk with him.

That day he’d called for her to go shopping for milk and diapers, she’d walked away from a sale, telling the customers she appreciated their support of her business, but that she needed to go help someone with no money. They’d pulled two fifty dollar bills out of their wallets, saying, “Maybe this can help.” That money ended up in the envelop Henry gave Gillian.

Losing to Win?

What a Pain!

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Why is it that there’s always a stone in the way?

Psalm 82:3

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There is a secret to life, well it is a well know secret, so not really a secret, but a key to succeeding in life in the things that really count,

which is not power, money, or fame.

It is in living as one who reflects for all people God’s love, compassion, grace, and healing power for us all.

That key is that saving one’s own life is a disaster in the making.

Losing one’s life for another human is great.

Losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the Gospel, so that God’s boundless love, compassion, grace and healing is known by others, now that is what we were created for and

living that way is to succeed at life, where it really counts.

Simple

yet

losing one’s life for others to know God’s love

still feels like one is losing,

well,

losing life!

And that, I guess, is the secret. That that pain and suffering is also what life at it’s best is all about.

The Personal Ad,

The One Determinative Thing

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Can We See What’s Coming

Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1 Timothy 1:5

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.

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Words of Grace For Today

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A personal ran in the newspaper, back when there were such things, that read: Lost, missing for hours or days, it’s hard to tell, last presence evidenced by a note to myself last week. Reward unknown. Oh, lost is my mind. Call me if you find it.

The next ad read: oh, forgot my number, too.

Two days later another personal ran: Found one loose and lost mind, wandering about the back avenues of 3^rd and Park, near the Bowling Alley. Call 412-384-9012 if you know of it’s owner.

Three days after that an article on page three ran a story about the happy ending of an old man in his early 90s reunited with his mind that had wandered off during a boring TV program on shellfish, and the young mother of three who had found it engaging her oldest boy over the fence to the alley behind their house.

…

Sometimes, all too often really, it seems we get separated from the one thing that makes such a determinative difference in our lives, the joy of our salvation, namely being found and saved by Jesus. Our stories make about as much sense as the ads and story in that newspaper that summer in New York when it was hot and smoggy and crime was at its worst.

…

So, even when we are not so lost in a fantasy world of liars posing as politicians and people hoping for the impossible (which will lead to the loss of many things basic to democracy and human rights), we too pray,

restore to us the joy of your salvation Lord. For this is the one thing that does not change or get taken from us.

Help us to love You, our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemies … and all creation (we have to add, since it’s been on the endangered list now for oh too long.)

Hemmed In

On All Sides

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Finding the Path Home?

Out There Somewhere?

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27-28

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

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Words of Grace For Today

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Trying to escape from the Wildernesses

of poverty

of hunger

of harassment

of threats

of apathy

of depression

of other people’s wildernesses

of the desert of a parched soul;

We’ve all tried at one time or another to escape

or at least minimize the parched heat, or the soppy wet floods, or the thunder, lightening, and wind storms of an angry planet or soul that seems out to do us in.

While we may try on our own, in real desperation, as even the least of believers to seek God,

yet God is not to be found, for God is before us, behind us, above us, under us, and to each side of us, walking with us through all the deserts and wildernesses that we traverse.

For we are God’s children, also this day, with all it’s challenges and things to be rightfully feared.

No other solution is needed, and we do not escape at all. God gives us what it takes to make it through, for even if death finds us, and takes us, there God gathers us in

to a home like none we have yet known. Home.

Be nice to have a home even in the wilderness, or maybe especially in the wilderness, eh?!