Category: Perspective

The Lines

Of Sorrow and Mercy

Monday, March 17, 2025

Are so long

Across the face of all creation.

Micah 7:18

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger for ever, because he delights in showing clemency.

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Luke 1:54

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,

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Words of Grace for Today –

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When God hides from us, there is nothing more than despair left.

Joy has taken wing, along with hope,

and the wear and tear of life eats away at our hearts, minds, and strength until nothing is left, except

a prayer of desperation.

Phillip John Hanseroth wrote it in The Story for us all.

All of these lines across my face

Tell you the story of who I am

So many stories of where I’ve been

And how I got to where I am

But these stories don’t mean anything

When you’ve got no one to tell them to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP0BZ9P4gdA

…

Then a year ago, @Malindams, told her story commenting under one of Brandi Carlile’s renditions of The Story: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pQLtHTPaI)

“All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am”.

These words saved me during many rounds of chemo and radiation. I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I had a kindergartener and a 4th grader. My boys were so young, I told my oncology team, bring it on, I can take it…I just have [to] live long enough to get them through high school.

The chemo took it’s toll and aged me so much faster than my friends, it was hard to deal with. Now I know the lines across my face tell the story of where I’ve been. 15 years out and one boy has graduated from college and one who is a junior…both are thriving and I celebrate life every day.

Thank you, Brandi for putting into words, what I could not.

So it is with many of us, and for me:

The grief engulfed us and took us down, as God hid from us,

or so it seemed.

What then, but to take the advice

what can you do when you find yourself in hell, day after day?

Just keep going.

And on the other side of the dark dark blue blues, there are the days of brilliant sunshine, and blessings that were there all along,

just hidden in the grief,

holding life out in all it’s wonder for us to be grateful for.

…

so we thank everyone who had words to help us keep going through the hell.

It’s still there, it never goes away,

but the promises are truer now than before,

for there is no better way to know there is light,

than to see it from the darkest moments of the darkest wildernesses.

…

Thanks to all those who had the honest words

of God’s love for us all along…

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You see the smile that’s on my mouth

It’s hiding the words that don’t come out

And all of my friends who think that I’m blessed

They don’t know my head is a mess

No, they don’t know who I really am

And they don’t know what I’ve been through like you do

And I was made for you.

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Special thanks to the few who were always there …

And God, full of mercy and steadfast love, who sent them …

For whom we were made.

Found, Favoured

and Sent

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Out of Darkness

into Brilliant Light, God Calls

and Sends Us …

Genesis 6:8

But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord

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1 Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God chooses us, favours us,

and oh, we could celebrate ourselves into oblivion with such great pride!

But

God does not choose and favour us that we may be made important in our own eyes or in the eyes of the world.

God chooses us, favours us, and then sends us out to proclaim with our deeds God’s mighty acts of saving us miserable sinners caught in the deep darknesses of our own making.

In the Light, by God’s grace alone, we see

God’s Wonders

so clearly contrasted to our own miserable attempts to make things right.

The greatest wonder is that God chooses to save us from the darkness.

Remember.

Re- member.

All that God has done for us, so that we can share it all with others.

Confirm

Or conform?

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

And Get Squashed

No more able to conform to the badlands

than to the devil’s wishes

and yet ….

Joshua 24:22

Then Joshua said to the people, ‘You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.’ And they said, ‘We are witnesses.’

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2 Peter 1:10-11

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Standing in the crowd, most people bow to the emotions and direction of charismatic rulers, as those leaders promise to provide better days for the crowds, even as those charismatic punks steal everything and everything possible from the crowds for themselves and those who pave the way to power for the weak people desperate to be rules.

So the crowd conforms.

So the crowd confirms.

So the crowd gives weak people power over them, to let themselves be robbed of life, hope, and peace.

On this necessary journey of Lent,

seeking to find the reason for all this chaos,

we remember God chose and called us,

equipped us and sent us out to

the most vulnerable

with the most valuable words

the Word of God,

the promise

of life

for

all.

Just

Friday, March 7, 2025

Just A Broken Body,

Not Alone,

By God,

By God’s Grace.

Proverbs 10:19

When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.

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Matthew 5:37

Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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In a word

just

just me

That’s what each of us have,

Even if others are around us, love us, hold us, wonder with us,

in the end

it’s just

…

not that others loving us, holding us, wondering with us is nothing … because

because it is about all the bonus life has for us,

still

in the end

it’s just

…

me

…

for each of us.

…

Doesn’t take many words to say it all.

Just me.

Except it really is

…

as God shows us again and again,

it’s nothing about

me

for each of us.

It’s all about God’s love

that we share with others.

Just me, because God loves me,

is what each of us can say,

which is really to say

just nothing about me at all.

Enter

The Light of the World

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

See the Light

of the World!

Zechariah 2:10

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord.

.

Matthew 21:10

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’

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Words of Grace for Today –

We seldom see God entering our lives.

First because we seldom see God.

But most of all because God is always in our lives, we just don’t see.

Many would say: open your eyes.

But that is not something we can do when it comes to seeing God. It’s not our choice. It is a gift from God, given to us by the Holy Spirit.

We can choose to sing.

And sing God’s praises we should, can and have many reasons and opportunities to do so,

like

breathing

waking to a new day

laying down to rest

working hard

basking in the bright sun

feeling the fresh breeze on our face

enjoying a nutritious meal

being able to give to others what they most need, including the joy of being alive.

Remember

Saturday 1 March 2025

Remember the Golden Times

of Years Gone,

Gone,

Gone,

Or is it golden even now?

Isaiah 46:9

… remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me,

Revelation 1:8

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

if only we could remember.

Remember where we put things.

Remember why we are here.

Remember God?

That’s so far beyond possible.

Or is it?

Will God keep us from remembering even God?

We would hope.

Hope that God is powerful enough from Alpha to Omega, Beginning to End,

and certainly from our beginnings to our ends

to remember us.

And then all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well.

Faith

A Most Precious Gift

Sunday 23 February 2025

Guarded By God

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/northern-lights

Wonders of Wonders,

And More To Come!

Zechariah 9:8

Then I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that no one shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again overrun them, for now I have seen with my own eyes.

Luke 8:24-25

They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Life has all sorts of challenges.

Many would do us in.

More would just make our lives a whole lot more difficult, leading to an earlier death.

How do we hang on to our faith in the midst of these challenges?

…

If faith were our own making, the news would be devastating. We could not hang on to our faith. We’d lose it. We’d be toast.

Thank God, the Holy Spirit creates faith in us, and through our experiences collected from our forebearers and our own experiences, we can learn that there simply are no challenges to us, not even imminent death, that need create fear in us that we are on our own, that God has abandoned us to the deep and deadly.

For God stands as sentry to our hearts, minds, and spirits, protecting us from all that would do us in. For, since God has made us sinners into saints (though we also remain sinners), we are therefore spiritual beings on a human journey, not mere humans on a failing spiritual journey.

Death is not our end, just an end to this journey, and then comes …

well that we will find out, but God promises it will be more wondrous than this journey as humans.

Thanks be to God.

Shepherding The Flock

Equipped for Grace

Friday 21 February 2025

See the Light of Christ,

Let It Guide Us

To Be God’s Own

Micah 7:14

Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land.

Ephesians 4:11-12

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There are lots of callings, all according to the gifts we receive. All given to be shared so that others will have life abundant, knowing God loves them.

So God guides us all.

Let us be guided by the Spirit, this day, too.

For that is who we are, Spirit led saints, God’s voice, feet, and hands in this world.

Help, Help?

Listen For Help Given Long Ago

Thursday 20 February 2025

When Life Comes All Apart, Trying to Blindly Throw It All Together Rarely Works. Jesus Advises Us To Be As God Created Us, Ones Who Love Even Our Enemies.

Deuteronomy 32:36

Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people, have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, neither bond nor free remaining.

Luke 18:7

And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?

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Words of Grace For Today

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While we have many plans to bring justice, by defeating evil itself, sending it into a grave it will never return from …

This is seldom the way God delivers us.

Jesus calls us to love our enemies.

Some of us have figured out that this is how God conquers evil.

Three bigger boys started in on the new boy, Yari, calling him names, taunting him, bullying him in more and more threatening ways. Then one day they knocked him around, stole his lunch, and ate it in front of him – taunting his helplessness. That night Yari talked it over with his father. They made a plan together. The next day, when the bullies appeared again, calling him names and demanding his lunch, Yari offered them three lunches, made especially for each of them. At first they were shocked. Then they left in embarrassment, never to bully or taunt him again.

Lectionary Stories, Cycle C, adapted 2025

May we be the instruments of God’s way to peace, in small ways each day.

Do Not Worry

About the Hour When …

Tuesday 18 February 2025

What’s Coming At Us, From Behind the Trees, On the Road, Through the Woods?

Or

What a Beautiful Sunset

Over the Snow and

Through the Woods!

Isaiah 49:23

Kings shall be your foster-fathers, and their queens your nursing-mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.

Luke 12:11-12

When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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It’s all fine and good to say do not worry, but most of us worry no matter what, sometimes even about things that deserve to be worried about.

Being brought before the authorities to defend oneself for being a Christian, when the punishment for that faith was death for so many … well that certainly seems to deserve more than a little worry. One’s life is on the line.

But then

one’s life is always on the line

if one is faithfully serving Christ

by being a servant to all, and master to none.

Only in a different life will the kings and queens bend so low as to care for us, let alone care about us, other than to wipe us out for showing the truth about their wickedness and God’s goodness.

But that worry, and that other life to come, need not consume more than passing thoughts from us. We have our work cut out for us, sharing God’s blessing and gifts with those most in need of them. Without cost they are given to us, though we certainly have not and cannot earn them. The only ‘string’ attached is that we share them. For these gifts are really only blessings if and when we share them with others in need.

That’s how God’s world works, whether we worry or not.