Lent Devotions 2022
For Lent 2022, our writers were asked to choose stories that reflect our annual theme of “Choose Love. Choose Hope.” We hope you find these personal reflections thoughtful and motivating.
Ash Wednesday, March 2.....................................................................3 Along for the Ride, March 3.................................................................4 Keep Psalm and Carry On, March 4....................................................5-6 Restore, March 5...................................................................................7 The Power of Love, March 7................................................................8-9 Together in My Name, March 8..........................................................10 Two and a Half Walls, March 9............................................................11 Send Me, March 10...............................................................................12 Love is Patient, March 11.....................................................................13 Never Expected That Would Happen, March 12..............................14 Our House of Six, March 14................................................................15-16 It Feels Like Spiritual Turmoil, March 15...........................................17 Choose Space/Choose Hope, March 16............................................18-19 We Do Not Act Like This, March 17....................................................20-21 House of Hope, March 18....................................................................22 Faith Seems Impossible, March 19.....................................................23-25 Inspiration from our Sisters in Haiti, March 21.................................26 The Mantra of Choose Love, Choose Hope, March 22.....................27 Choosing Hope at the Pine Ridge Reservation, March 23...............28 Love Lives Here, March 24...................................................................29 Hope for the Littlest Things, March 25.................................................30 Stop Talking.... Start Listening, March 26...........................................31 Keeping Score, March 28......................................................................32 What is Hope?, March 29......................................................................33 Love All Around, March 30....................................................................34-35 Choosing Hope Because of Love, March 31.......................................36 It Takes Action, Not Just a Decision, April 1........................................37 Choosing Love with the Ones We Love, April 2.................................38 When Hope is Chosen, April 4.............................................................39-40 Giving Cheerfully in Kenya, April 5......................................................41 Small Choices, April 6............................................................................42 Hope for the Best, April 7.....................................................................43 Rooted in Love, April 8..........................................................................44 How Deep is Your Love?, April 9..........................................................45 Writing My Way Into Love, April 11.....................................................46-47 Changing Family, April 12.....................................................................48 Hope is an Action Word, April 13.........................................................49 Maundy Thursday, April 14...................................................................50 The Path of Love, Good Friday, April 15..............................................51-52 Rest, Holy Saturday, April 16.................................................................53 The Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Sunday, April 17....................54-55
ASH WEDNESDAY March 2, 2022
John 3:21: But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. Tuesday, January 12, 2012 at 4:50 pm I was walking with friends in Jacmel, Haiti when it sounded like the largest diesel truck ever was barreling toward us. It took a moment when the ground began to shake for it to trigger that we were actually experiencing an earthquake. Huge clouds of dust and debris from pulverizing cinder blocks and collapsing buildings choked our lungs. Screams and cries came from all around us. We still had four people back at our hotel and so we rushed through the dust, fallen power lines, and streets piled up to 10 feet in rubble to make our way back to the hotel. Once we had everyone in our party safe, we left our partially collapsed hotel to seek out shelter. We eventually found our way to a refugee camp established by the United Nations on a small airstrip. As it was close to midnight and we were the only Americans to be seen, we hunkered down off to the side of the make-shift camp. We were concerned about how people would respond during this tragedy and didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. The next morning, we discovered that we had little to fear. Haitian people who had lost everything recognized that we foreigners had nowhere to go and began to reach out to us. A group of folks invited us to gather near them under the few trees present on this small airstrip so that we could be shielded from the sun. This group loaned us a few blankets so that we did not have to sit on the bare ground. One man came over to us and gave us a sack full of coconuts. Another man brought us a bag full of baked rolls. A woman brought us a jar of mamba (spicy Haitian peanut butter). We listened as the crowd sang hymns in Haitian Creole. We added our voices, singing the same hymns in English. Some who were in the earthquake could see only death and destruction. I chose to focus on the countless acts of love, care, compassion, sacrifice, and hope that we personally experienced through our Haitian siblings. I could see beauty in the midst of the devastation. Even on the most difficult and trying days, God showed up through beautiful human beings assuring us that love and life win. Experiencing the “dust” during the Haitian earthquake has reframed for me the Ash Wednesday phrase, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I’ll never forget how long it took to wash all of the dust from my body, hair, ears, and nose. Not only am I dust, I carry a lot of dust. God loves us dusty humans. When God looks at us, God sees beauty and goodness. This love from God gives us the opportunity every single day to choose love and choose hope. We don’t choose this because it’s easy. We choose it because we are loved and have received the promise that love and life win through the risen Christ. We pray that these devotions will inspire you each day through your Lenten journey to be the heart, hands, and feet of Jesus in the world by actively choosing love and hope. God loves you and I do too! Loving God, thank you for my life. Thank you for naming and claiming me as your precious child. Help me to choose love and choose hope each and every day so that your light might shine through me and all may experience real life in Jesus’ name. Amen Pastor Doug Hill, Lead Pastor
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ALONG FOR THE RIDE Thursday, March 3
Matthew 13:32: It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. My uncle passed away during the fall of 2020. Because of COVID, funeral plans were put on hold. Last May, funeral plans were finalized in Larimore, North Dakota. At that time, I was in a personal funk. I needed to get away, check out from work, and generally change my limited daily routine. I needed a road trip. More importantly, I needed no agenda and limited organization. In most instances, a 15-hour drive to North Dakota would not appeal to a 17-year-old in his senior year of high school. However, my 17-year-old, Miles, was game. Our plan was simple: drive north and drive east. We saw more Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota two-lane highways, farmland, and grain elevators than I have previously seen in my lifetime. It was not the most direct route, but it was the right route for our trip. Miles slept, chatted, played his music and was generally great company. His unassuming love was the perfect gift for the perfect time. He loved me by his willingness to jump in the car with me, by helping me celebrate a wonderful man, and through the care and understanding he showed my cousins, who lost their dad. Miles may not see this as a significant sacrifice and he may not have intended to demonstrate any specific love and care in his actions, but he did, and it meant the world to me. His company and his willingness to just be with me and my extended family was the love and example I needed at that time. He helped center me and recharged me, so that I could then follow his example and be there for others. Spend some time thinking about this passage: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. (Hebrews 10:24) Jon Reitan
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KEEP PSALM AND CARRY ON Friday, March 4
Psalm 42:9-11: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. I am always drawn to the Psalms, which makes sense because poetry, journaling, and songwriting have been powerful forms of self-expression for me since I was pretty young. I actually still have a diary from a bazillion years ago when I was just about the same age as my son. Parts of it are “dear diary” entries, but a lot of it was prayer journaling. I learned at a young age that talking to God was always available to me, and that is how I built my relationship with the Divine: I just talked to God through my multi-colored retractable ballpoint pen. From the swelling in my chest, I poured out the love and pain I felt for those suffering around me, roared anger from the heat in my belly out in messy scribbles, and often smeared the pages with splashing tears. I imagine the Psalmists were pretty much the same (sans multicolor pen and jewel-tone pages.) Why have you forgotten me? Why can’t I change? Why can’t I kick this habit? Why, when I try so hard to speak and act from love, do I still say and do hurtful things? Must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me? My son told me he thinks sin is like a bully that tries to force us to do things we don’t want to do, but if we learn to ignore it, eventually it will go away. I loved this. But sometimes it feels like the bully is never going to leave me alone, that I’m not strong enough to ignore it, and I feel trapped under the weight of shame and helplessness. As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Listen, I don’t really have adversaries. I mean, there are some people that rub me the wrong way, and I’m sure I have some haters in the world, but I just don’t really pay them mind because emotionally, I. just. can’t. Instead, I try to draw good boundaries that allow me to love them without being abused. However, I do deeply desire to be seen for my intentions. More importantly, I want to leave a lasting net-positive impact, but my deadly wound pulls me into
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hiding, tempting me to “die” alone in the absence of light. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? You know one of the most amazing things about journaling, writing, creating? Once all of that junk gets poured out, somehow, a bit of the weight lifts and there’s space again to consider hope. Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. We are not alone. We are one with God, led by the spirit, and brought into community together. We’re better together. Praise God! For the Lent season this year, I have committed to journaling daily. I’ve been out of practice for a while, and even though my pretty, new (read: had it for five years at least) journal sits right next to my bed, I tend to choose ways of dissociating instead (read: Netflix). I haven’t committed to a format, only to put pen to paper once a day and let whatever comes to me flow out unfiltered. I invite you to join me in whatever iteration makes sense to you. As we let a little weight fall away through our pens, maybe we’ll also find a little more room to choose hope and choose love. Kim Gnagey, Director of Worship Arts
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RESTORE
Saturday, March 5 Galatians 6:1: My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. This year’s theme, Choose Love, Choose Hope, states there is a choice. I guess—but honestly, what happened to me between Easter and January? It’s difficult to choose love and choose hope when I see old friends doing hurtful things to others. It’s difficult to choose love and choose hope when I hear others criticize me for my thoughts and rationale and impose their own without compromise. It’s tedious to choose love and to choose hope while I’m trying to help my late teen transition to adulthood. What choice of love and hope do I have when family members are hateful toward me or my husband and child? I feel I cannot choose love and choose hope when a young friend has made choices leading to being charged with a felony. I break at trying to choose love and choose hope when friends’ kids kill themselves. I am hard pressed to choose love and choose hope when I’m forced to spend way more time behind a computer screen than I ever dreamt when all I want to do is see faces, talk about life, and feel the warmth of others’ physical companionship. Oh, and by no choice of love or hope, there have been four significant deaths in my family within the past year. And Betty White died. I send money to help feed people in other countries, and I send money to feed local people. I send money to help with research on diseases that have taken my loved ones. I read news and research letters and political articles and keep up on headlines. I raise money for charities, and I have served people who need me that I can reach. My actions show “choose love, choose hope,” but, frankly, my spirit isn’t into it. I have listened and helped and fought and given. I’m exhausted. I show signs of bitterness and dissent. But I want to restore. I want my faith back. I want to earn my friend’s title of eternal optimist. My boss called me her “joy-bringer.” People say, “I love your energy.” Man, I am just not that right now. This is my Lent work, as I see it. I pray, “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” I have to work to reengage my heart so that love can seep in and hope will remind me that I have strength. That’s when hope will reveal that I do have a choice. I have work to do this Lent. There’s no sugar-coating, no happy ending, no nice, neat ending to this devotion—this is an honest prayer. I know that once my spirit is restored and I feel God— there is no end to the possibilities. That is hope. I know from my past experiences, that once restored, my spirit is contagious. I am wandering in the desert this Lent season. Lord, I pray for help in restoring in me a spirit of gentleness. Amen. Juley Allee
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THE POWER OF LOVE Monday, March 7
Psalm 136:2: O give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever. All throughout my life, I have seen many instances where love has impacted not only my life but the lives of others around me. I would like to share how these experiences have changed my life for the better and inspired me to be the person that I dream to become. I will be honest, growing up for me was a never-ending test of my own character at an age where I didn’t know what having character truly meant. It was a never-ending battle of adversity and pain that was healed by precious moments, where I saw love and its positive impact that even myself could do better within my given circumstances. When I was 10 years old, my mother passed away from a drug overdose. After our mother passed away in 2013 my two older half-brothers were already living in Denver, starting their lives. My twin sisters and I were left in the hands of my stepfather, my younger sisters’ biological father. In short, we experienced the negative impacts of living with someone with a lifelong drug addiction who had lost respect for himself and was selfish in the sense of getting what he wanted, even if that meant hurting my sisters and I emotionally and physically. One could say the complete opposite of love and its attributes. A normal meal back when my sisters and I were surviving day by day consisted of moldy food or anything we could get our hands on. Money was really scarce after our mother passed away and my stepfather’s never-ending addiction was always the first priority. My sisters and I became numb to the way we were living and accepted that this life was normal. My stepfather’s relationship to drugs got so bad that we were kicked out of our own bedrooms so that his business associates could have them. My sisters and I slept on the floors of a broken down living room with little to no food, and often without running water and sometimes electricity. All the while, we continued going to school and putting on a fake smile, acting like everything was normal. We got so used to living abnormally that it became normal to us. The point of this story is really about what happened next, which changed our lives forever. Our situation with our stepfather finally got to the point where I couldn’t bear to see my family in pain anymore. With the help of my brothers in Denver, we were rescued and blessed with a new opportunity. In 2017, we were placed into foster care with a beautiful, kind, loving family. They took us in without hesitation and taught us how to take care of ourselves. Furthermore, they gave us a foundation to build upon. This act of love and generosity gave me hope out of the worst moments in my life. I learned that I could grow and learn as a person by loving others and that I could do good for others in need by loving them. This was a life-changing understanding when I realized how powerful love can be. For this, I will always be appreciative of my foster family.
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I was further reminded of this love and support by my Aunt Anne and Uncle John, as well as my cousins, Stephanie and Stacy. When we were first taken into child protective services, my Aunt and Uncle immediately filed for guardianship of us and stayed in close contact for the year we were in foster care, while we went through the legal process of being allowed to come and live with them permanently. They are the caregivers and amazing role models I never had in my life. Their love is something that drives me everyday to help others and show love to other people because without the love they showed me, I would not be where I am today. Neither would my sisters.
Now, I hope I can do the same thing for other people that need that same amount of love or support. I will continue to do everything in my power to show others that they are not alone and that you never have to endure life’s greatest challenges by yourself. Because in the end, we are all human. Everyday, I want to change peoples lives with the love that changed my life. Love is a powerful tool and I want to inspire others to use it more because the power of love is something that can never be defeated and can change someone’s life forever. If the world expressed a little bit more love I think we would all be better because of it. God, thank you for teaching us how to love. Help us to love as you love every day of our lives. Amen Dakota Harper
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TOGETHER IN MY NAME Tuesday, March 8
Matthew 18:20: For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. In the fall of 2019, a new small group at Abiding Hope was created. Our first gathering was in early January of 2020. Most of us were able to attend that first time, then a different group of us in February, and some of us met in March. Then, you guessed it, Covid-19 hit. Next, we tried for a couple of months to meet virtually. Eventually, we came back together inperson. It’s been two years now, and even though we had to stay apart sometimes, we never lost connection. It was a choice we made, to come together in one way or another. Those of us in this group all have children around the same age, and we’re all busy; some with sports, others with work, extra-curriculars, & homework all around, etc. But even then, we manage. There are plenty of reasons to say no, to cancel, reasons not to, excuses we can make. Month after month, we say yes (and so do the kids). Each gathering, after a great meal together, the kids go play and the adults discuss a topic. Though we may not always share the same views or interpret passages exactly the same way, and certainly have had varied experiences in life, we always have wonderful conversations. There might be a few tears here or there, and many, many more laughs. We’ve learned so much, from each other, about each other, about our kids. We’ve come together, in God’s name. Lord, it’s so easy sometimes to stay away or to close off, to choose not to. We thank you for the opportunities to come together, that you have put on our hearts. We’re better when we’re together with you. Amen The Corneillie, Molder, and Zerr small group
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TWO AND A HALF WALLS Wednesday, March 9
Luke 12:32: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. I worshiped with the folks of St. Andrew Lutheran Church on a sunny Sunday in September of 1992. It was muggy that day in Homestead, Florida. But there were no air conditioners whirring away or cars rushing by on their way to the beach. And as yet, there were no generators grinding or helicopters clattering. The silence was unsettling. At church, we greeted each other with hugs and smiles. And we looked up and around us at the two and a half walls that were still standing. They seemed taller than usual among the destruction that Hurricane Andrew had left behind after its hideous journey through South Florida 13 days earlier. We worshiped sitting on the odd collection of chairs that people had brought with them. Their clothing was odd, too, salvaged from the rubble around them, and their feet were bruised and bleeding from trying to walk on broken glass and twisted metal. They were still living in homes that were about to be condemned, as was their church. When we reached the time in the service for prayers, news of another hurricane stunned the worshippers. Hurricane Iniki was about to slam into Hawaii. St. Andrew’s folks didn’t hesitate. They immediately took up a collection for the people of Kauai, promising more when they could find their checkbooks. That’s what it looks like when we choose love and hope, even when only two and a half walls are standing. I’m guessing that you’ve gone through times when you realized that only two and a half walls were protecting you from fire, loss of what had been home, covid, children in trouble, job loss, divorce, fear of what’s next, hopelessness, depression, chronic illness, or death. We’re in the season of Lent. The truth is spoken. We are dust and to dust we will return. But Lent’s 40 days carry us to a larger, more overwhelming Truth. We make our way out of the rubble of Good Friday and the eerie silence of Holy Saturday and walk with Jesus out of his tomb and ours. Our feet, like his, may be bruised and even bleeding, but we are alive. Alive with love and hope that swirl in and among and around us as it did that day in Homestead, Florida. The way forward wasn’t easy for the parishioners of St. Andrew. When electricity lit up their homes again three months later, it shone on families in trouble in so many ways. It also illuminated the faces of the people like us, people from all over who wouldn’t leave these ravaged people alone. Their persistent love and hope, food and water, comfort and compassion, and hammers and saws, helped lead the bruised and bleeding victims of Hurricane Andrew to green pastures, still waters, and restored souls. Don’t be afraid, little flock. God is here. We are here. We can choose love. We can choose hope. Thank you, holy God, for your never-failing presence in our lives, no matter what. Amen Susie Gamelin
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SEND ME
Thursday, March 10 Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” In thinking about our theme for this year, my thoughts meandered in a myriad of places. But they kept coming back to the community of Abiding Hope. The simplest way for me to express those thoughts is this: Abiding Hope is a…
Community of people sharing their Heartfelt desire to give Opportunities to so many Others across the globe; Sacrificing their time and talents, Everyone giving of themselves, Lifting each other up, Offering whatever they have to give Voice to the lost, the downtrodden, the lonely. Each member of this Caring community always ready to do the Heavy lifting to Openly look beyond themselves; to look Outward as they Serve those in need. Putting aside their Everyday lives to live into the mission of being the Heart, hands, and feet of Jesus in the world with an Overwhelming Passion to share with others so they, too, may Experience. Real. Life. Ever-loving God, thank you for the gift of this community that puts others before self, gives and serves generously, and chooses love and hope in a world often drowning in fear and despair. In Jesus’ name. Amen Cathi Thelen, Administrative Assistant
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LOVE IS PATIENT Friday, March 11
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Two confessions of truth: The people closest to us are often the hardest to love. AND I don’t do old people well. That is particularly tough admission since some would say I am on the cusp of being “old people” myself. Old people are slow, forgetful, frail, and cranky. But now I find myself in the position of being the primary caregiver for my aging mother. She has mild to moderate dementia. If you haven’t spent a great deal of time with someone with declining memory, imagine it like dealing with a toddler with gray hair and wrinkles, reminding them to put on a coat before they go outside or they need to use the bathroom before we go for a car ride. For the most part, she does a decent job taking care of herself, however making complex decisions or remembering things she was recently told or has done is particularly difficult for her and profoundly frustrating for me. Mom had a mind like a steel trap. She could rattle off the name of every boy I ever dated, as well as the model of car they drove. She had recipes memorized for hundreds of dishes she made when she was in food service. Now she can’t remember how to turn on her oven, or scarier for me, how to turn it off. I get 6-8 phone calls a day from her with questions about something she saw on TV or read on her calendar (Mom: have I gotten the vaccine? Me: Yes mom, 3 of them. Mom: I don’t remember, I forget things sometimes. Me: I know, it’s ok) Same questions, over and over and over again. With each irritating phone call, I feel I just can’t do it anymore. Old people are hard! I am reminded by the oft quoted at weddings “love passage” in Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, that love is an action verb. Love is patient and kind. Seriously? Patient during the 8th phone call of the day about the same thing? I have found it helpful to prepare myself for the act of love when dealing with her. When the phone call interrupts my workday for the umpteenth time, I take a deep breath and a long exhale, centering my mind into a space to be kind, before I pick it up. When I am driving to her home for the 3rd time that day, I pray for God to help me choose love—to grant me patience and trust God With Us as we journey forward. As I spend more time with her, intentionally choosing to lead with love, I have found that old people are not as frail as I thought. I held her hand as she got a bone marrow biopsy last month, and saw her stoicism through dozens of blood tests. Give her the assistance of a walker and she is faster than I am! She is wise and funny and especially kind—all things that go unnoticed when I am in a hurry. She is teaching me that slowness has its benefits. Perhaps, with God’s help, I can do old people well after all! Spiritual practices for times when it is hard to choose love: Pray immediately prior to dealing with a difficult person to help you lead with love and patience. If you have no time for an extensive meditative prayer, try what I call a Yahweh prayer. Inhale deeply and say or think Yaaaahhhh, exhale slowly and say or think weeeehhh – take a moment to feel the holy spirit settle your heart and mind before reacting. Lisa Selzler 13
NEVER EXPECTED THAT WOULD HAPPEN Saturday, March 12
John 15:13: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Someone who comes to mind when I think about what it means to Choose Love, Choose Hope is none other than our Pastor Jay. Now, I realize that this seems like an effortless choice to write about the pastor. But what you might not know about him is that he leads a small group I attend called “Dad Bods,” which consists of exercise that focuses on physical health and self-care. What you also might not know is a particular exercise called prison burpees; look it up if you need to. If there is any chance I can earn some brownie points to maybe skip a few at our next session, well, here we go! All kidding aside, everyone loves Pastor Jay and, in my household, he is a “Rockstar,” especially if you ask our 2 and 4 year old kiddos. I’m sure all the preschool families hear their kids sing his praises as well. But what I want to talk about is a time that I found myself in a gloomy and lonely place. I had been driving down this unfulfilling path for quite some time, but things really surfaced and started to boil over when the pandemic hit. I found myself acting out of character and losing my cool easily and often. I would focus so much on my problems that I was missing the precious time and love from my wife and our remarkable children. For the first time ever, I was actually worried that I couldn’t get a grip and pull myself out of whatever I was in. I was scared. I was scared that all the weight that I carried around was ultimately going to control me for good. I knew I needed some help. But it was hard for me to follow through and ask someone for help. Eventually, I reached out to a couple therapists and for whatever reason I opted out of seeking counseling just yet. And sure enough, another episode put me over the top and took the wind out of me. That is when I reached out to Pastor Jay. Now, Pastor Jay did what you would assume only Pastor Jay would do… he stopped doing handstand push-ups (I am guessing), picked up his phone, read my text, and came to meet with this broken dude. What I remember most, as I walked up to him, was his energy. He had total peace. It was like a switch. I was completely knocked off my heels. His peaceful presence, on top of his really helpful advice, instantly helped me shed that baggage that only kept getting heavier. He modeled for me what it looked like to Choose Love and to Choose Hope in himself. I learned that I was trying to focus on my problems so much and I so badly wanted to fix them, that I had completely neglected my own need to Choose Love and Hope for myself, which is the only area in my life that I can control. If I had kept going down the previous road of anguish any longer, who knows what more I would have lost. I was saved by Love and Hope through Pastor Jay. I am eternally grateful for that time he spent with me. How crazy is that! I literally walked into a building broken down and empty, and I walked out feeling completely changed and whole. Dear Lord, thank you for showing up. Thank you for all those like Pastor Jay who show up. May this Love and Hope given to me continue to flow out of me and be multiplied. Especially through this hard time, I lift up those who have felt or experienced despair and pain. Please be with them until someone like Jay shows up. Amen Matt Burris 14
OUR HOUSE OF SIX Monday, March 14
1 Corinthians 16:14: Let all that you do be done in love. In 2018, a few major changes happened in short succession. I moved back home with my parents just a few months after they had taken legal guardianship of my three cousins. It had been a long and painful process after my aunt died in 2013 and their father had fallen deeper into patterns of addiction and neglect. We were all adjusting to their presence in our lives when it became clear that I also needed to come home as my health had deteriorated due to chronic illness, and I needed more support. At the time, it felt like I didn’t have a choice. Now, I believe we were all drawn together, like magnets, by the force of God/Love working in and through our lives. It wasn’t exactly easy. I was going from a place where I spent most of my time alone, to the chaos of living in a crowded house with my parents and three teenagers. I hadn’t been completely outside of this as I was frequently at my parent’s home for dinner or after school activities. I spent most weekends hanging out. But it was different getting into the daily routine, being a constant fixture. I was terrified of how I would maintain my needs and my routine amid all the busyness. I was worried that the kids would become a burden to me and to my health needs. Finally, I was worried about the burden I was posing. I had long struggled with the guilt over the burden I had become to my parents. Now, on top of raising three teenagers with a great deal of trauma to work through, my folks were being forced to once again resume an increased responsibility for my life as well. I also worried that I would be a burden to the kids. They were just finding their way, making a new home for themselves. I didn’t want to get in the way of that. They were aware of my health condition, but they only witnessed it in spurts, in those moments when I was with them and did my best to be “on.” They hadn’t experienced so much of the negative, the time spent resting and in pain. I was worried that this would be hard for them. More than anything, I worried I just wouldn’t be enough for them. Fast forward to 2022, living through a pandemic together and everything else, and I think we have perfected a rhythm in our house of six. I love being a part of my cousins’ lives, and being there to support my parents in raising a bonus set of kids. And, I am so very grateful for the support my family provides me. It’s still hard sometimes in the way that family always is. We all bump up against each other. Sometimes, I get tired and annoyed and cranky. I get snappy and then I feel bad. I worry that I am overly critical. I get on the kids about something they do, even though I know that when I was their age, I would have done the same exact thing. Sometimes, I forget that my parents are really the ones in charge. I have a natural “take charge” energy and I can get bossy. Sometimes we argue. But we work through it. I like to think that my parents are mostly happy to have me there, to have my help, and that I have made myself somewhat less of a burden because I have chosen to take on this role in the kids’ lives. My parents never go there. Family means everything to them both. The kids need a place to live, here they are. I need help, I’ve got it. We all choose love, as a family, over and over again. For all our collective faults, the way we conflict with one another in our very crowded house of six, I
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can’t imagine inhabiting a different space right now. I belong here, doing life together, however messy it can be. Caregiver God, thank you for blessing us with family, whether the family we are born into or the ones we choose for ourselves. Thank you for the chance to choose love, to choose to do life together. Let us continue to lead lives of love at home and in the world. Amen Stephanie Harper, Assistant to the Lead Pastor
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IT FEELS LIKE SPIRITUAL TURMOIL: A PATH LEADING TO GOD’S LOVE AND HOPE Tuesday, March 15
John 1: 5: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Unfortunately, as a young child, I was deeply wounded by my Dad’s extreme control, his paranoid outlook on life and relationships, and by his constant anger and raging, which we all tried to avoid. I didn’t dare show any vulnerability around him because it was emotionally and spiritually dangerous. According to Carl Jung, the parts of me that were hurt or rejected because they were not acceptable in our family were pushed back into the shadow of my personality. We all have a shadow, whether or not we are in touch with it. Those parts of us, when ignored or out of our sight, can cause havoc in our lives. Bringing them into ourselves and becoming integrated results in making us whole again. During this time of my life, when I am being faced with 5 upcoming surgeries, I need all the strength I can get. With all the Al-Anon 12 step work that I have done, I had already worked through a lot of issues, but this was different and needed a different approach. Just at the right time, I heard Pastor Doug talking about shadow work a couple of times and asked him about it. With his guidance and a lot of dedicated time and further research on my part and with God guiding me, I no longer feel torn by conflict that I didn’t understand but was undermining me. I feel as if those parts of me, who were wounded too, are now on my side and will help to strengthen me, not tear me down. There are different paths to discovering our shadow and our core wounds; but be sure of this, there are no shortcuts. When we face ourselves and have the courage to share this with another, we think we will die, but, amazingly, we don’t. Even though it felt like turmoil, on the other side is a more whole and integrated self who now has more room for joy, peace, hope, love and forgiveness – overflowing abundantly to share with others. There are several choices that I have when faced with this deep pain and/or fear: I can choose to ignore it and continue to live in fear and pain I can choose to bury it deep, so that I am numb and have no feelings at all I can choose to hide it by addictions, acquiring material things, overeating, etc. I can choose to confront it and talk about it so that I can heal and become whole If I want to live free of pain and fear, then I know that I have to continue to face and conquer my own fears, pain, insecurities and my own fear of vulnerability. If I want to Choose Love, Choose Hope, I have to be firm in my decision not to be ruled and controlled by fear but instead be free to make decisions based on God’s direction at the time. Choose Love. Choose Hope. Change the World One Person at a Time. God of mercy and love, shine Your light into my darkness and illuminate the parts that You want me to see. Walk with me and help me to become the person that You envisioned. Amen Shirley Johnson 17
CHOOSE SPACE/CHOOSE HOPE Wednesday, March 16
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” In the spring of 1982, in the span of one month, Deb and I both graduated from college, we were married, and we moved from Minnesota to San Diego, CA, so I could start my first engineering job with General Dynamics. It was a very exciting time, starting the rest of our lives together and beginning my dream career of working on the space program. I had known that I wanted a career in space since I was 9 years old, watching the Apollo 11 mission, including Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the surface of the moon. It was completely amazing, and I was hooked! I was about to work on the coolest program in space – the Space Shuttle. We were redesigning the world’s most powerful upper stage rocket called Centaur to launch many important missions from the Space Shuttle cargo bay. I was assigned to work on the guidance system for the Centaur and had the challenging and exciting job of adapting the guidance system that was designed to work on unmanned rockets with missions that were an hour or two long, to operate accurately on space shuttle missions that could be several days long. It was fascinating work that included developing techniques and operations to link the shuttle guidance systems with the Centaur system. I tested these techniques in Houston with the astronauts that would conduct them on the shuttle. Many of us poured our hearts into this program for 4 or more years. We were planning to launch the Galileo spacecraft to study Jupiter in May of 1986. That January, we were training for the launch at Kennedy Space Center, and I had recently spent a week there for launch rehearsals. Our second team was there conducting similar rehearsals the last week of January. Several of us were on a speaker phone talking with that team as they watched the Shuttle Challenger launch on the morning of January 28. They described to us how amazing the initial portion of the launch was, and then how horrific it turned as Challenger exploded, killing all 7 of the crew members. We were stunned, as were most Americans. In our state of shock, we watched the TV coverage for the rest of that day. This was a tragedy beyond comparison for the family and friends of those who were killed and it was also a horrible blow to our nation’s space program. We also knew that the Challenger tragedy would have major impacts on our program. A few weeks after the tragedy, our mission was delayed by 13 months. A couple of months later, our program manager gathered all of the employees to inform us that our Shuttle/Centaur program had been canceled. There were many tears that day. Large layoffs followed. Many more that had not been laid off, decided to leave for other jobs, as they “saw the writing on the wall” and were concerned that there might not be a future in space for our company. I too was concerned.
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NASA’s Atlas rockets, which were designed and built by our company, were being phased out because all US launches were being transitioned to the Space Shuttle. Shuttle/Centaur had been the only major ongoing space program for our company. After plenty of soul searching, discussions with Deb, and prayer, I decided to choose hope and stay the course; hopeful that there could be a fulfilling career in space with my current company. I had been living my boyhood dream and really liked and respected my boss and our company. I was hopeful that there would be a long-term future in space for our company, and was also very determined to
help turn that hope into reality. While the next few years were lean and challenging, it turned out that the path to stay the course was a good one! Our nation changed its space policy to move satellite launches back to ‘unmanned rockets,’ as it made no sense to put lives at risk on shuttle missions for satellite launches. Our company decided to continue the Atlas rocket program, taking over from NASA all aspects of operating the Atlas rocket system, and also invested heavily in improvements. I had fantastic opportunities developing some of these improvements, and we subsequently developed several new versions of the Atlas rocket. Our space division was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 1994, and the business and our family were moved to Colorado – I can’t express strongly enough how significant this move was to Deb and I and our extended family! The Atlas program, which was being phased out in the 1980’s, is still flying today and I had the incredible opportunity to participate in and/or lead 184 fascinating space launches, including missions to study planet earth, the moon, the sun, and missions to our sister planets, including launching the Curiosity rover to Mars and the first ever mission to Pluto. This all happened because back in 1986, I chose hope. I am forever grateful! Dear God – Thank you for our blessings and for your guidance in our lives. In these very challenging times, please help us all to Choose Love and Choose Hope in all we do, to make this world a better place for all of our siblings! Amen Jim Sponnick
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WE DO NOT ACT LIKE THIS Thursday, March 17
Colossians 3:12: As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. When I think about the phrase “Choose Love, Choose Hope,” I think about my husband, Matt, and how he has handled aggressive encounters. 2020 was a hard year for many and my family was no exception. Matt went through a lot personally but has emerged very strong and assertive. Two incidents really stick out in my head of how Matt handled very appalling behavior with authority and compassion. The first incident was at our previous house. It was in the spring of 2021 when we had a big snowfall. Matt was out on the ATV plowing the road and driveways of our neighbors. Matt had our then 3-year-old on the ATV with him. A neighbor a couple of houses down, drove by in his truck, rolled down his window, and proceeded to chew Matt out for piling snow up where it would melt and eventually work its way to his driveway. Matt was rightfully upset about the aggressive nature of the encounter but was especially disturbed with the language the man used around our son. Instead of avoiding the hostile neighbor, as I would have (and did), Matt waited for the man to return to his house to talk with him. He went to his door and spoke to the man about his language and his aggressive verbal attack. The man tried to backpedal but Matt’s message was clear-- if there is a situation we need to discuss, we do it respectfully. We do not act like this. I was incredibly proud of Matt for handling a situation made to make him feel small, and instead he controlled it with grace and strength. The second situation might sound familiar because Pastor Doug used it in one of his sermons. We had just moved into our new home and hadn’t met all the neighbors yet. Everyone we had met was wonderful and we feel like we hit the jackpot of neighborhoods. We had noticed an older couple across the street. The man seemed to be a poor driver because he would park extremely close to our cars and sometimes up on the sidewalk. When my dad came to visit one day, we learned that the older man was actually being vindictive. He didn’t like when our friends or family would park on the street in front of his house/lot. My dad had parked in front of his house and the man backed his car purposefully into the front of my dad’s car. As we went out to assess the damage, the older man came out very aggressively, yelling at us for parking there. Matt took hold of the conversation and told the older man that his behavior is unacceptable and that is not how we act. If he has a problem, then he comes and speaks to us respectfully. We had also heard that the man had had a stroke, and, in the heat of the moment, Matt compassionately acknowledged the struggles that the man must be going through with his body. The man completely stopped in his tracks and thanked Matt for understanding. Matt clearly established that we wanted to be good neighbors to each other and that we expected better behavior. The man brought a case of beer to Matt the next day. If Matt is outside, the man regularly walks over to chat. Matt helped him fix his sprinkler one day and his oven another. They brought us pastries for Thanksgiving. We brought them flowers for Christmas. And most recently, the man came over when his wife fell and needed Matt’s help to get her up.
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Matt has taught me a lot with these situations, the most being that it is absolutely okay to civilly tell adults that their behavior is unacceptable. We have seen a lot of turmoil, injustice, and
disrespect in our world recently, but we can hold ourselves and others to a higher standard, to have neighborly respect where we can rely on one another. Thank you God for Matt and for blessing us with him. Help us to find our own inner strength and grace when dealing with uncomfortable and hostile situations. Help us to choose love and choose hope. Amen Rebecca Burris, Director of Communications
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HOUSE OF HOPE Friday, March 18
Psalm 30: 4-5: Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment: his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. I believe I was raised in a house of Hope. I spent my childhood with two parents who both faced physical challenges in their lives. Like most kids, I was pretty sure my parents’ lives didn’t really start until I arrived, so I never really appreciated the attitude my parents had chosen when facing adversity in their lives until I was older. My mom uses a walker named Blanche. She actually owns several walkers, and they are all named Blanche. Blanche has been a part of our family for a while now, and her name is often used as if she were a person. “Excuse me, Blanche” is a phrase I’ve often used. I’ve realized there are a couple of reasons my mom has decided to name her walker. One is so that we don’t have to use the word “walker,” but the other reason is very sweet. My mom feels that by giving her walker a name, she can make the best of a situation when she is meeting new people or walking slowly through a room. By letting people know about Blanche, she is able to make them feel more at ease and give them a reason to laugh with her when they experience her as she continues to walk for as long as she can. My dad was also born with physical limitations. He required several surgeries on his feet in his early years until his late teens. Despite these challenges, my dad never set out or let his limitations dictate his life. Instead, he chose to play as many sports as he could while growing up. He would play goalie or catcher so that he wouldn’t have to move very far. Today, he focuses on taking care of his wife, kids, and grandkids, and playing golf as much as he can. I try to remember every day that I have been given so many gifts in my life, especially the gift of good health. I try to make the use of my (fairly) healthy body to serve my parents and my family who have not always had that opportunity. I don’t think that it’s an accident that my parents ended up together. They grew up in the same small town, and even had the same doctor, only discovering this in their twenties when they started dating. Watching my parents’ devotion to each other and the way they take care of each other has become an inspiration to me. I see them both living as hopeful people even as they are getting older and have new challenges. I think that is the greatest example of hope. When you know a situation may not get better or a problem may not be solved, you continue to live a life of hope, love, and gratitude. Gracious God, today I thank you for breath in my lungs and the ability to serve my family, friends, and you. Please give me strength and hope so that I can be strong for the people that need me. Amen Christine Simcox
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FAITH SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE Saturday, March 19
1 Corinthians 13:1-3: If I speak in the tongues[ of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Faith can, at times, seem impossible. Five years ago, I found myself working at a church with which I had theological and moral disagreements. I’ll avoid going into too many of the details here, but perhaps give an example. If the belief is that the bible is literal and inerrant, then the story of The Fall is very confusing. God creates Adam and Eve and tells them, “have fun! Do your thing! Oh, but that one tree, don’t eat that. Seriously.” Then a snake comes over and says, “yo! Guys! Have you tried these apples?! They’re so good, you guys! Omg you gotta have one.” Everybody has apples, naked people, yadda yadda yadda, sin is created. I have a two-year-old son. I know that if I tell him “don’t touch that cheese,” the next thing I see will be cheese in his hand. Further, in all honesty, if my wife tells me, “please don’t touch the cheese before dinner,” somewhere the two-year-old inside of me INSISTS that the cheese must be touched prior to dinner. And no serpents live in my home. This whole thing feels like a set-up. God is omniscient. He knew Adam and Eve would stumble into the orchard. God is omnipotent. He made the apple, he made the serpent, and he made Adam and Eve. God made the desire for apples (and cheese). So God made sin. But God hates our sin (or, at least, this is what I was told), and millions of goats had to be killed over the years to atone for it. Then Jesus was killed and now all the sin is forgiven. Wait, what? All the sin gets washed away, but until the apple (which God created), there wasn’t sin in the first place? Why not save the goats (and the Jesus) and skip the whole sin thing all together? An omnipotent God could certainly do this. Would a loving and just God set us up for failure in this way? This is only a single example of an extensive train of thought that lasted for many months. I found that these contradictions seemed to call into question things that seemed like they should be fundamental truths about God - things that seemed like first principles. Was God actually omnipotent? Was God actually omniscient? Was God actually just? Did God really love us? Was God actually good? Did God even exist? So I had questions and I started to look to the community around me to try and find some kind of answers. The answers I was given were very unsatisfactory. They usually oriented around the “mysteriousness” of God’s actions; were built around self-contained, logical contradictions; unprovable negatives; or only raised more questions. 23
No one around me seemed to be struggling. People that I respected and went to for answers seemed to be pleased with the platitudes or contradictions that they used to try and answer my questions. Was I the only one that felt this way? Why was this hard for me and easy for them? My father was a pastor, shouldn’t that mean I was better at this? As this experience went on, I started to find it painful. I had been a Christian for many years. This was an element of my identity that was important to me and that felt foundational to who I was. Two significant elements of my personality that I valued deeply, my faith and my intellect, seemed to be at odds with each other and at risk of ripping apart and mutually self-destructing. -Faith seems impossible. This story probably doesn’t end the way that it should. It should end with me finding some demonstration of God’s goodness and truth. It should end with me encouraging you to stay faithful even when you have questions and even when things don’t make sense. I should be telling you that sometimes faith seems impossible, but it never actually is. For me, faith seemed impossible. And I gave up. I very clearly remember standing in the sound booth during the sermon and internally fighting a war: “I should believe this.” “I’m not faithful enough.” “I would be able to do this if I were a good christian.” “This would make sense if I were a better person.” I can still hear the noise in my brain and feel the tension in my body rising as I think through this experience. “Wait,” I thought, “why in the world am I torturing myself with this?!” So I stopped. And I let go. -I won’t say that I reached a conclusion. I haven’t. I don’t know what I think, and I’ve come to a place where “I don’t know” is a sufficient answer. The fight, the work that seemed necessary to believe, wasn’t worth the torment that I was putting myself through. I decided it didn’t matter. But now I had a problem: for all this time, I had been a christian and that made me a good person. I thought that my faith in God motivated me to be kind, to help those in need, to love others even in the face of anger and adversity. Now that my christianity, my faith, was gone, or at least highly unresolved, would those things also necessarily be gone? 24
If faith, if God, no longer dictated what was right, if faith and God no longer guided my choices, who made those decisions now? Who was it that decided what a good life meant? The only answer that seemed to make any sense was this: me. I decided I had to make those choices. I was the arbiter for myself of what would serve the betterment of the world around me, of what it meant to lead a worthwhile life. One of the scriptures that initially guided me into identifying as a christian was 1 Corinthians 13. We’ve all probably been to enough weddings to know it. That message about love felt so true to me. That seemed like the most important thing. Looking back at it now, I think it still is true and important, but one passage in particular seems more significant to me now: “if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Love is more important than faith. And your faith isn’t what decides whether you should, or should not love, or even what love looks like. You are. You get to decide how you live. You get to choose. And you still get to choose even when your faith feels weak. You get to choose even if you aren’t sure who you are anymore, or if what you’ve been doing all this time is the right thing. You get to choose even when the war rages inside of you that says you aren’t doing it right or you aren’t good enough. You still get to choose love. So faith does sometimes feel like it’s impossible. But love never actually is. For contemplation: In what ways can you continue to choose love in your own life? Stephen Bailey, Director of Digital Arts
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INSPIRATION FROM OUR SISTERS IN HAITI Monday, March 21
Romans 5:3-5: Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. I took my first trip to Haiti in 2012, a trip that changed everything. My perceptions, my reality, my heart. On that trip we visited women enrolled in the Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM) program. CLM is an 18- month program that seeks to raise up Haitian women who experience ultra-poverty. These women and their families typically eat only one meal a day, have no adequate shelter or safe drinking water, and can’t afford healthcare or education. Their income is sparse at best, and sometimes non-existent, requiring them to live off the charity of their relatives or their communities. Before joining the program, these women are defeated…you can see it in their eyes. They tend not to look at you, they speak very little, and they have no self-worth. Yet when given the choice, and when enrolled in the program, they choose love, they choose hope. CLM provides the coaching for these women to start on a path to a better life. The women are given the assets to generate an income, such as goats, chickens, seeds, or merchandise. They also receive materials to build a 10’x12’ home and a latrine for their family, along with a small stipend to purchase food. They receive water purifiers and access to free healthcare to bolster daily health. And case workers and classes help them build confidence, manage the income they generate, and make decisions about their commerce when it succeeds or fails. Once established in the program, you can almost immediately see the changes in these precious women. Their hope flourishes and they dream about the lives they can build for their families. Halfway through the program, confidence and pride burst forth. The program isn’t easy; crops can fail, animals can become sick and die, storms can create havoc, all amid the host of challenges life in Haiti brings. But the women persevere and navigate both obstacles and successes, continually choosing love, choosing hope. And after 18 months of learning, hard work, and immeasurable discipline, CLM graduates march into their graduation ceremony in their best clothes, singing and clapping, with huge smiles of joy on their faces. It is something to behold. They chose love; they chose hope. It wasn’t always easy, but they’ve come out of the journey stronger, more confident, and have become leaders in their community. They’ve gone from ultra-poverty to poverty. They have a home, can feed their children and can send them to school. They can secure microcredit to expand their small businesses. And they continue to choose love and hope, like the woman who lends seeds to her fellow farmers in exchange for some of their crop at the end of the season. Coming back from Haiti, I found myself profoundly changed. Now when I come up against a challenge, even something that seems all-consuming, I step back and consider those precious women in the CLM program. When all odds were against them, they chose love; they chose hope. With the inspiration they’ve given me, how could I not do the same? Meditation: Think about one of the biggest challenges you face today. What would it look like if you overcame it? What can you do to choose love and hope one day, one step at a time, to navigate this challenge and arrive at the other side? Ask God to help you as you take each step.
Judy Leidy 26
THE MANTRA OF CHOOSE LOVE, CHOOSE HOPE Tuesday, March 22
Romans 5:3-4: Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. It would be easy to write an essay about how difficult the past two years have been for all of us with the pandemic. It would be even easier to complain about how my last couple years of high school and my transition to college were exponentially more challenging than they might have been. What’s easiest of all, however, is letting myself get swept up in the narrative of mental anguish, social isolation, and fear for the world around me. No one can deny that the past two years have taken a toll on ourselves and everyone around us–the burnout on life itself is visible in the eyes of everyone I meet. Suffering has become the norm; whether we have had to turn our bedrooms into a classroom or if we have seen someone we love pass away, we lean so fully into the hurt we’ve been harboring since March of 2020 that it feels truly insurmountable at this point. When the wave of that pain comes crashing down over my head, tugging at me to drift back into the depth of my own self-pity, keeping my head above water–let alone perseverance–seems impossible. For this reason, the mantra of “choose love, choose hope” is especially relevant for me. The world will not change to best suit me, or any of us, for that matter. Covid, politics, day to day stress, and the post-traumatic cycles of hurt that we are tangled in will not go away or change themselves–they are aspects of reality that no amount of wallowing or complaint will remedy. Therefore, perseverance and healing, instead of being given, must become a choice. When things seem so difficult that they overwhelm our ability to see love and hope clearly, faith reminds us that it is through choosing to continue searching through the fog of suffering, we build our character and our strength to maintain the love and hope we so desperately crave. Faith also allows us to be hopeful for more hope–that is, for the hope that is yet to come should we still choose to believe in it. Choosing love and hope for ourselves, choosing to exude it, only fills the world with more of the love and hope that it seems to lack. As an act of kindness towards ourselves, we choose through faith to be in the presence of God as we keep swimming against the tide of heartache; through doing so, we find further love and hope to go forth as active hands and feet of Jesus in the world. May You grant me the strength to wake up with enough faith to continue choosing hope and love throughout my day. May the permission I give myself to feel suffering only equip me with more strength and perseverance. May your light come as a constant reminder of the grace that I should afford myself, even when I feel undeserving. May I do what I can to spread hope and love in my corner of the world, and to know that it is significant, no matter how small of an impact. Amen Ella Arnold
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CHOOSING HOPE AT THE PINE RIDGE RESERVATION Wednesday, March 23
Hebrews 10:23: Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. In April of 2019, I was traveling to the Pine Ridge Reconciliation Center, excited for a week of learning from the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge reservation in southeast South Dakota. I was looking forward to getting away from all the trappings of suburban life and entering into a new conversation. I thought I was ready to learn what it means to live and serve in another context and to understand better what it means to be living a different experience in the United States. I expected it to be eye-opening, mind-expanding, and relationship-building. What I didn’t expect was how this trip would be soul-shaking. During my time there, I had the joy of meeting Tony, a teacher at the local high school whose job it was to help preserve the language and culture of the Lakota people. He shared his experience of how his students learned to embed themselves into their music, how the sacred flute was a way of connecting the heart and mind to their culture. Their connection resulted in their recording an album that was awarded a Grammy award. I met Henry who developed a new way of heating homes using solar energy that was so prized that MIT asked for a model to study and he was eventually awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. I met a team of young adults, who through their own grit and energy, formed the Thunder Valley Community, a community that owned their own land and houses when other places on the reservation are not permitted ownership due to old injustices in treaties made for the reservation. I found that Pine Ridge is full of individuals dedicated to seeing their community flourish and bring dignity to their people. I learned how resilience, in the face of hardship, entrepreneurship in the face of lack, and pure grit and strength in spite of a history of systematized abuse and neglect is the true face of what it means to “choose hope.” I recognized that in my own life, I have never ever had to fight against institutional racism, intrinsic poverty, or communal neglect. But here were people that would not be silenced and would not fall to despair. They chose, despite every circumstance, to stand up for the dignity and growth of every person on the reservation. These were people that worked all for the common good of every person, for the collective whole. They fought not just for their own individual identity but for the respect and care for the whole people. These were people who knew what it meant to “choose hope.” The day we left, I realized I had been hollowed out over 4 days of visiting. All my preconceived notions were expunged and I was humbled to learn a new way of describing hope. In the place of what I thought hope was, a wish-fulfilling fantasy of unrealistic expectations, I found the boots-on-the-ground vision of hope, a hope embodied in the people at Pine Ridge, who don’t just speak of new life but live it out daily. I plan to travel again to this incredible community. I invite you to “choose hope” and join us for our next cultural immersion in fall of 2022. God of the nations, open my heart to learn from the other. Strengthen the Pine Ridge community that they may experience hope in every circumstance. Amen Pastor Jay Gamelin, Lead Servant for Family Life 28
LOVE LIVES HERE Thursday, March 24
Romans 12:12 (NIV): Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. As we walked into the Brookdale Highlands Ranch Memory Care building, I noticed the sign had a blurb at the bottom, “Love lives here.” Well, it better live here, I harrumphed to myself. I was at my wit’s end. I certainly wasn’t joyful, and I didn’t have much hope. Just two months earlier, Mike and I had moved my sweet mom, Grace, from independent living into an assisted living center. I thought it was the perfect plan; she was much closer, and we needed to make her world a bit smaller. It just wasn’t what God had planned--He had something better in mind. We were told in October that mom required more attention than could be provided in assisted living, and a move to a memory care community was in order. How could I have missed the signs of mom’s deepening dementia? My heart was broken as we toured Brookdale Highlands Ranch, even though the building and atmosphere were warm and inviting. But God’s love and light broke through just when I needed it. As we completed our tour, an energetic, young woman approached us and said, “I know you!” It took us a while since we were both masked to make the connection. Finally, she said, “I know—you sing in the choir!” We drew our masks down for a quick second, and I recognized her instantly when she said, “I’m Molly Clancy, one of the activity directors here!” Instantly, I recognized her as a cheerful member of Abiding Hope Church who had organized and headed up the church kitchen. Although I didn’t know her well, I knew that Molly was one of those people whose winning smile and positive attitude is contagious. That day, Molly was working with a small group of residents making greeting cards. She explained that at this stage of life, making cards is more fun than playing cards. It was an “aha moment” for me. My mom, Grace, who had been a middle school reading teacher and master bridge player for over 30 years, was now ready for specially designed activities. When I looked at their monthly calendar, I was amazed at the daily creativity and the variety! Musical and interactive dance performances are scheduled weekly. Exercise is daily. Journaling, coloring, and making crafts are a necessary part of the curriculum, as is Bingo and other guessing games. Many days revolve around a theme. Last Saturday was Elvis’ birthday, so they painted Elvis while they listened to his music. This Saturday was national Tulip Day, so they made origami tulips. Mom loves all these activities, but especially enjoys the cooking sessions. This week they are making blueberry lemon bars. Whenever I stop by to visit mom, I am reminded of the quote by Kahlil Gibran, “Love is work made visible.” I see the patience, kindness, loving smiles, laughter, and plain, hard work modeled by all the staff at this Brookdale home. This is a group of professionals that choose love and hope every day, and they are an inspiration to me. Indeed, love does live here. Dear Loving Father, when COVID seems to make all tasks harder and more complicated, open my eyes to those who put love into their work every hour, every day. When my job seems difficult, remind me that your spirit is most clearly shown when I am weak. And thank you for those special souls who make hope and love visible through their work. Amen Lori Dubetz
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HOPE FOR THE LITTLE THINGS Friday, March 25
Matthew 13:22: It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Not long ago, I had been having a rough week. I was having a tough time seeing much hope or love in the near future. But then as Family Life Sundays was wrapping up, I met one of our preschoolers and her dad in the hallway. We chatted for a bit about how much they love Abiding Hope Preschool (a common theme, and such a blessing to this community). After we chatted, I was working on something in the hallway and the two walked down the hall. The preschool friend started pointing out to her dad where her cubby is, and pointing in the window at her classroom, showing her parent where she puts her drawings and where she reads with her teacher. Then she showed her dad the sign that shows she will be line-leader on Thursday and he stopped, got down on her level, and told her how proud of her he was. This preschool parent started tearing up because, due to pandemic protocols, he hadn’t been able to see where their daughter spent her days. And then I started tearing up, because it had never occurred to me that so many parents were choosing to trust Abiding Hope with their kids. Of course I knew that on some level, but to witness the pure joy someone had by seeing, for the first time in almost two years, where their kid puts her water bottle each day, it got me. The hope required to send your kid to a school that you haven’t gotten to enter because of the pandemic, trusting the teachers to care for them well, and hoping that the seeds planted in your child will help them blossom into a strong, kind, caring, human being is incredible, yet it happens in bits and pieces. For me, Choosing Love and Choosing Hope is almost impossible when I keep it big. When I look at the world and try to imagine the whole world transforming into God’s kingdom. When I only work on a massive scale, it is really easy to be discouraged. But it is in moments the size of a mustard seed, which is to say the really really small acts of trusting that love and life win, that create a life of choosing love and hope. The saying “Hope is a Muscle” comes to mind here. That we start hoping without much practice, and gradually build up to the big hopes. While that isn’t always possible, like with our preschooler and her dad who had to take a giant step of faith, I wonder if we can grow our hope in retrospect, by identifying those mustard seeds in our lives that have become something bigger and stronger than we ever expected. Today, I encourage you to make a list of all the things you’ve hoped for where God has shown up. All the mustard seeds that have been planted in your life. All the ways you have been loved into who you are. Start with the little things. The moments where you saw a preschool cubby and were overwhelmed by love and hope that everything was going to be ok. Write out your list, then turn it into a prayer of gratitude with a final “thank you God, amen.” Pastoral Intern Lindsay Bates
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STOP TALKING… START LISTENING Saturday, March 26
Jeremiah 30:17: But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord, ‘because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.’ In January 2020, Roger and I attended our son’s wedding in Telluride where we enjoyed meeting people from around the world. A week later I (along with several members of the wedding party) fell seriously ill and had every symptom of this new disease that was emerging in our own country. Testing was non-existent, but there was no doubt it was COVID! That began a two-year journey of falling into despair and confusion. We have all undoubtedly suffered from the effects of the pandemic. Our societal response was puzzling. I wondered “Why are we so frightened?” Why do we find ourselves insisting “I’m right and you’re wrong?” Two years later, we’re still talking about COVID in almost every conversation we have, and rarely agreeing with each other. By mid-2021, I was exhausted from the constant sense of loneliness, judgment, resentment, and angst spawned by feeling out of step with the majority. Many friends and family held differing opinions and seemed intolerant of my opinion. I complained about how judgmental people had become, yet I was judging them for judging me. Slowly, God revealed to me that my perception of “being judged” was to a certain extent selfimposed. It was time to find a way out of self-destruction. “Lord, help me to see clearly past my own pain so I might ease others’ pain.” The prayer was not instantly answered (drat!), but a newto-me truth emerged: We are finite beings in an infinite universe governed by an infinite God whose answers come in God’s time and in God’s way. I’ve come to understand it’s not about COVID … it’s about our response to COVID. It’s our choice. These days, I simply say, “Let’s stop TALKING about this!” “Let’s stop talking about which remedy is the right one…which vaccine is correct…which protocol should be followed.” How about listening to one another? How about hearing the fear, anxiety, discouragement in others’ stories? How about taking away the power of fear and despair that permeates our society and replacing it with the more powerful love that heals all things? God is restoring my love and respect for others. God is teaching me that my grumpy attitude might cause additional fear rather than comfort. God reminds me to be an instrument of peace, not angst. COVID is here to stay, but it doesn’t have to be the center of our conversation. Let’s just talk about how we can choose to love and choose to hope. Lord, help us to talk less and listen more so that we can choose love and hope in our relationships with one another. Amen Sue Zen
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KEEPING SCORE Monday, March 28
Romans 5:5: Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. A couple of years ago, I started a scoresheet for myself. A way for me to track how I did or didn’t “succeed” in different aspects of my daily living. I called it, Did I Do My Best Today? The categories include things like Exercise … Gratitudes … Practicing one aspect of golf … Reading … Meditating … Drinking 5 glasses of water … Learning something new. There are also categories involving my business and work activities, as well as staying focused on goals. However, the three most important categories on my scoresheet are intentionally outward. They are Family & Relationships … Seeing blessings, wonder, and mystery in all things… and Making a difference in one person’s life. The scoring I assign myself is on a scale of 1 to 6. I’ve kept the scoresheet daily, typically the next morning for the day before. I ask myself: Did I do my best today? Shining a light on these areas gives me the powerful reminder and affirmation, did I choose love for myself, for Donna, for my whole family? Did I choose to absolutely see blessings, wonder, and mystery in all of creation and honor all of it as chosen by God? Did I choose to make a difference in the life of at least one person with whom our paths crossed that day? When I first started keeping score, I mostly gave myself 2’s and 3’s, sometimes a 4 in places. It was eye-opening. I knew I could choose to be better, to do better. As time went on and these categories and life practices became a part of my consciousness, I gradually moved to doing 5’s and 6’s most of the time now. Truthfully, an occasional 4 or less slips in, which is ok. It serves to remind me that I am human and to refocus me. To be sure, it is a process. Having the daily reminder of these three categories is a blessing. At times, it feels like we can be alone in a dangerous, dark, difficult world. Yet, this practice helps me feel the embrace of a loving God and the encouragement to exemplify God and Jesus to all. In these times, we cry out for faith, for love, for hope. A sun that is eclipsed by clouds is not a sun forever hidden. Donna and I have been around since the very first days of this congregation. As we all sought early on to decide on a name for our church, the people honed in on a phrase that would carry us through time, challenges, and difficulties. Abiding Hope. ‘Abiding” means lasting into eternity. Love and hope has been happening in our Abiding Hope community since the very beginning. May we all choose (abiding) love and choose (abiding) hope now and forever! Dear God, today I dedicate all I am and all I have as a conduit of the power of love and hope in the world. Refine my personality, increase my understanding, and deepen my skills so all I do might reflect your presence in the world. Amen Doug Phelps
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WHAT IS HOPE? Tuesday, March 29
Psalm 39:7: “And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. Life as we know it has become very complicated and stressful in the last few years. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt it. Our country has become so divisive over just about everything; right or wrong, left or right, black or white, and on and on… This was all happening before COVID, but then we were all locked down in this pandemic, and it just got worse. The way we did our jobs changed; many lost their jobs. School became an online nightmare for our kids, supplies became scarce, and, for some, money was tight. People have gotten really angry. Violence has escalated and road rage is out of control. I think most people probably spend a lot of time hoping for things to get better for themselves. A long-needed vacation for your family (or maybe from your family). Maybe you hope to win the lottery and you think that will make your life easier (I buy my ticket every week…just in case). Or maybe you hope for good health (my daughter’s chronic illness is a frequent subject of our prayers). These are all the sorts of things many of us probably think about that might relieve some of the stress we are under, or improve life in the short term. But would any of these things really transform our lives for the better in the long-term, or change the complications of the world around us? What is hope? According to Wikipedia, hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. In its archaic form, hope means trust. I think that if we all would choose to hope, not just for ourselves, but for all people, it would not only change our outlook on our current circumstances, but it would also pave a way for us to repair the division in our country and the rest of the world. I choose to hope that we would learn to love all people, no matter who or what they are, just as Jesus did. Only love can heal our broken world and I choose to hope that we can contribute to that healing. If more people would choose love over hate, or even indifference, so much of the stress we have in our lives would melt away. This is no easy task, but I choose to hope that it can and will happen. I will leave you with this quote from my daughter’s favorite poem by Emily Dickinson: Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all… Anne Harper
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LOVE ALL AROUND Wednesday, March 30
Psalm 33:22: Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. I’m a long way from home now–I left in August. About 712 miles, as the crow flies. A lot has changed since then. That things would be different was something I knew. Which things, though, were entirely a surprise to me. I was without my mother’s care and my father’s splendid cooking, which I missed even more than they told me I would. But it wasn’t one specific thing I really ended up missing–I missed home, as a whole. There’s so much for me back there: my family, my best friends. Even now, I write back to Abiding Hope, just as much a part of Home (capital H) as any house or school ever was. What makes a home a home is love, I’ve decided. Love and familiarity. But mostly love. And here, 712 miles away in north-central Texas, I’m building a new home. In college, unlike high school, you don’t really have many classes with your friends, which was something I was shocked to learn. It would have to be from my own efforts that I’d make Home, and form that community Pastor Doug was always going on about back in Littleton. The anxiety was unbearable. I weaseled my way into any group I could, said yes to every plan. I kept a busy enough social schedule so that I wouldn’t have to think about the thing I dreaded most: being alone. I did an excellent job of it, too. I was terrified of the prospect of being all by myself in a foreign land, cooping myself up in my room without any friends. That was a fate I simply would not resign myself to. And I balanced it all like I was taught: I was exhausted but, thank God, I wasn’t lonely. The curious bit about love is that you don’t realize it’s crept up on you until it’s there. Exhaustion, however, makes itself very known. You feel it in your bones. Exhaustion is something carried, like a held breath or a backpack. Eventually, there came a time close to finals season when, as a collective, everyone engrossed themselves in their studies. Put simply, the exhaustion won. Academically, I did alright. But I was drained in a way that eight hours of sleep or a lack of homework couldn’t fix. I realized, to my own horror, that I had been idolizing other people’s love: I craved it more than I craved anything else. The fear of loneliness became worse than loneliness itself ever could be. And in a time when everyone had to put their heads down and work, there was plenty of both to go around. I was lonely, and in my soul, I was terrified that it would last forever. I think God asked me something then, though at the time I didn’t know it. I think God asked me to trust that the people that loved me just loved me and that I would stop trying to prove myself to them so I could earn their love. So I did. When my friends would ask how I was doing, I’d tell them I was doing a bit poorly, and that I was very tired. They asked me in return how they could pray for me. I was shocked–all around me was love, and I had been so obsessed with trying to hoard it that I didn’t realize it was already there; not because I won it saying yes to people I barely knew, but because I never had to win it at all.
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Shortly after the exams were over, I recall waiting on the porch of my dorm, for my ride to pick me up and take me to the airport. I was sitting at a table with some friends, and we were listening to Simon and Garfunkel. Some people were dancing. Some people were just sitting. I did a bit of both. I could almost hear God saying, I told you so, Elias. There is music on the other
side of exhaustion. Across the way from anxiety there’s dancing. One simple and elegant truth was made crystal-clear to me this year: Home is where love is, and love is everywhere. Words have always had power to me. Sometimes, when repeated with enough conviction, I find they can ameliorate whatever I’m feeling at the time. For me, those words are “Life goes on.” It’s so tempting to see whatever problem is most immediate as the worst problem we’ve ever faced and ever will face. But life goes on, and it changes our worries into triumphs, and our triumphs into worries. Part of life going on is knowing that the problems we face get better with time. It’s dissatisfying that we can’t make time go any quicker than it does–but it does its healing work all the same. Life goes on. Try telling yourself that as a daily practice. Elias Manutes
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CHOOSING HOPE BECAUSE OF LOVE Thursday, March 31
I Corinthians 13:13: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Romans 8:24-25: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” I wrote a devotional about my cousin several years ago. She was 31 years old and went into cardiac arrest; it was truly a miracle that she survived. Outwardly, she appeared to be very healthy, energetic, positive, and full of life. Inwardly, she struggled with mental illness and addiction. She was in a perpetual cycle of being healthy, binge drinking, detox, and rehab. My aunt and uncle tried to shelter the rest of the family from the pain and challenges they were going through with her. They had so much love for their daughter and had hope that she would be able to overcome her addiction. I know my cousin loved her parents very much, but she could not find love for herself and her hope for a bright future was clouded by self-doubt and fear. My cousin Lindsey passed away October 24th, 2021 at 37 years old. Fast forward 3 months and her mom, my aunt Janelle, just found out her triple negative breast cancer has returned. It is back as stage 4, and they can treat it but it cannot be cured. This was very difficult news for me to digest. My aunt is one of my most favorite people! She is hilarious, cheerful, lively, bubbly, kind, and one of the best storytellers you will ever meet. I keep thinking, “why her?” I usually try to remain hopeful and see the bright side in situations, but I feel so dispirited. Then I think about her. In the midst of all of that has happened, Janelle remains positive. Her words to me were, “I’m planning on being around for a long time, I have way too much to live for.” She is determined to stay positive and full of hope. She is surrounded by a very good support system. She has so many people who love her, are rooting for her, and are there to help her. She remains hopeful that the treatments will help and that they may come out with new treatments over time. She loves her family more than anything and will do whatever it takes to be around for them and with them. She is choosing hope because of love. Dear Lord, source of health and healing, please bring the spirit of calm to my life and the lives of my loved ones. Let us feel Your surrounding presence and bring health and strength and peace to all who are in need. Amen Erin Fisher, Director of Schools
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IT TAKES ACTION, NOT JUST A DECISION Friday, April 1
Matthew 25:40: And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ We have centered our efforts for 2022 on the theme of “Choose Love, Choose Hope.” What an incredible stance to take when it feels like we are all alone. The challenges of the world seem overwhelming and often I hear people wondering if they even matter or if they can make a difference. Jesus came into the world at a time of tremendous discord. He not only chose love and chose hope, He demonstrated this consistently in all that he revealed to us. I try to imagine the hopelessness and fear of the disciples not knowing what the future held. They lacked courage and they lacked faith and lived in isolation. That is, until the risen Christ came upon them. They believed and the Holy Spirit was upon them. What happened next is where we find ourselves today. However, we must make the jump to not just choose Love and choose Hope, but to put it into action as God commanded us. The love and hope we all seek is right before our eyes, if we draw on that same Holy Spirit that was breathed into the early disciples. You see they entered the world not focusing on their own needs or circumstances, but on the mission Christ put before them. They were to be the delivery system of Love and Hope into the world, just as we are being asked to do today. Yes, we are all broken to a degree but certainly God knows what we need. As we become the answered prayer for others through our action, what makes you think your own individual needs would not be met? It is certainly possible to be each other’s answered prayer if we choose love and choose hope and then ACT on it with the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us. The risen Christ is counting on us to deliver on these decisions. Matt 25:40: The King will answer and say to them, “truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the LEAST of them, you did it to me.” That sounds like a bit more than a decision. If anything, that is a call to action. There was a time in my life when pretty much all hope was gone, and I wasn’t feeling the love that I’ve since found in Christ. A group of strangers became my answered prayer. Their actions changed the course of my life. I’ve tried numerous times to repay them, but the answer was always the same. Turn your troubles to God and immediately turn your attention to someone you can help. Essentially, choose love and choose hope and become that answered prayer for someone else. My dad always shares what his grandmother told him, In everything, therefore treat people the same way you want them to treat you (Matthew 7:12). What a novel concept in this world. My prayer for all of us as we accept the call to be love and hope would be: Father, thank you. Forgive my lack of faith and trust in you. Thank you for showing us love and life win. Raise up the Holy Spirit within us and send us to be your vessels of Love and Hope in the world. Give us strength and courage to be there for all your people. May we each hear and see ways we can reduce suffering in the world by being your servant. May we strive to all be one as you would have us be. Amen Chris Holgard, Congregation President 37
CHOOSING LOVE WITH THE ONES WE LOVE Saturday, April 2
Ephesians 4:32: Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. During my adult life, I have tried to be compassionate and empathetic. I have tried to imagine myself in another’s shoes and acknowledge that I can never truly understand everything they are carrying on their shoulders. I must admit that this is easier said than done. Sometimes I am quick to judge when I do not think someone is putting in an effort on their job or a task. I compare what I see others doing and how much time they are putting in and question when I see it not being reciprocated or appreciated. But this is by my definition, not necessarily God’s. I am sure I am not alone in this thought process. Twenty-four years ago, my mother passed away due to complications from Multiple Sclerosis. Five years prior, my husband and I were placed with taking care of her. We had just gotten married when she was forced to move in with us. My mom adored my husband and let me tell you, I sure did as well. To be newlyweds having to take care of your mother-in-law, cast him in a whole new light! I appreciate that to this day. He was always looking out for her well being, ensuring that she was physically, medically, and emotionally secure. To this day, I do not understand the reasons, but there were several moments during this time when I was angry, exhausted and not empathetic or compassionate to my very own mother. Why couldn’t she do anything on her own? Why wasn’t she putting in the effort to take better care of herself? After my parents’ divorce when I was fourteen, my mom was the provider for my sister and me – financially, physically, spiritually and emotionally. She was our rock. Then in her forties, MS began to chip away that rock, piece by piece. Perhaps it is often most difficult to care for the ones that we used to rely on for strength. We eventually had to move her into a place that could better take care of her needs. Between my husband, myself, and my sister when she could come down, we would go and visit a few times a week. It didn’t help that I was pregnant and working fifty to sixty hours per week in a retail job at the time. My daughter was three months old when my mom left us. I really felt like I was being tested. When I look back over this time, I am filled with remorse. I am ashamed of my thoughts and how I somehow blamed my mom for having this awful disease. As time has passed and I have aged, I have grown in my faith. In my head, I know that my mom and God have forgiven me, however in my heart it isn’t always so clear. There are times when I judge myself and feel that I didn’t do enough to care for and support my mom. My husband and I are now challenged with caring for his aging parents. I see him sometimes losing patience and showing exhaustion. Perhaps it truly is more difficult to care for the ones that we love. I am now intentionally leaning in to choose to love and to hope so I can help him help them. Seeking redemption? Maybe, but also so that I can have another chance to use my compassion and empathy gene. It still isn’t easy! Wearing the clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience is a work in progress for me. But God gave us all the gift to choose our actions. I may not get it right all the time, but I choose love and I choose hope. Father, forgive me for judging others and help guide me to be more compassionate and empathetic to not only those walking in darkness, but to all of my sisters and brothers in Christ. Amen Dana Hess, Lead Servant for Operations 38
WHEN HOPE IS CHOSEN Monday, April 4
Romans 15:13: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. In our darkest moments, it is almost impossible to choose hope. It is then, when others choose for us, that everything in our lives can change. It is also those times we never want to talk about. For me, it was 27 years ago. I had always been a top student and hard worker. I had no student debt thanks to a full scholarship. I had graduated with honors and was working for NASA. I had even co-authored a paper published in a major journal. Everything was great. Especially when I was offered my dream job in Denver. When I moved to Denver, I knew only one person (a college boyfriend) who happened to also get a job on the same program. The next several months were not as wonderful. I knew almost no one. I worked in a company of mostly older men, so making friends was not easy. I felt isolated. My family had also suffered a tragedy and was reacting with extreme chaos. The isolation and family chaos took a toll, and I entered counseling. That was when things got worse. Back then, talking about mental health was taboo, and I knew little about it. So when a few months into counseling I was placed on a new-to-the-market antidepressant, I didn’t know what to ask. I didn’t question the potential side effects. I just assumed if it was prescribed and I took it, all would be fine. Unfortunately, it would be almost 10 years later that the manufacturer was found to have covered up how this medication adversely affected teens and young adults, causing suicidal ideation. I was one of those young adults. My depression quickly escalated into erratic behavior and suicidal ideation. Much of the behavior surrounded friends and relationships (including the college boyfriend) at work, since I did not know many people in Colorado. Within weeks, everything I had worked for, the reputation I had built, was destroyed. The suicidal ideation was not the worst of it. For me, it was the day my roommate and coworker pulled me from work because, not only was she concerned for my life, but she knew a complaint had been filed against me with HR. Fortunately for me, she recognized what was happening as she was one of the only people that knew I was in counseling. And I was even more fortunate that she had a hotline number in hand. So when I entered the HR office to have the most humiliating parts of my life discussed with strangers, I also had a plan to accept medical leave to enter an outpatient program. That was the hardest day of my life. The second hardest was the day I started the program. Already taken off the medication, I was beginning to see reality again and I was devastated. I had destroyed my only friendships in Colorado and my reputation at work. I did not see hope. Then, the hope came from the last place I ever expected. On the first day of the program, I received a card in the mail. The mother of the college boyfriend, the person I had probably harmed the most, had written me a simple note. She just told me that she was proud of me for seeking help and I could call her if I needed to talk. This woman who had many reasons to be angry with me, recognized that I was broken and offered me hope and love. It was an act so selfless that I knew I had to honor it. I honored it by going to the program, by returning to work after the program. And I continue to honor it by striving to choose hope and love not just for myself, but for those that have lost hope. Because I have experienced the power of someone else choosing hope and love for me. Throughout my experiences, I have found great comfort and encouragement in the Serenity Prayer: 39
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Amen Alice Wurst
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GIVING CHEERFULLY IN KENYA Tuesday, April 5
2 Corinthians 9:7: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver We have often heard, and probably repeated the scripture, “God loves a cheerful giver.” I know I have repeated it, especially to my children when I was trying to teach them to live Godly lives (and, let’s be honest, learning to help with chores at home!) This scripture came in clearly to me when I was volunteering in Kenya. I was a volunteer on 4 visits to a rural island community in Kenya, along Lake Victoria. It was a poor fishing village, no paved roads, no personal cars. Sometimes there was an old pick-up truck but mostly people got around with old motor bikes, bicycles, or walking. Food was not plentiful. People got by with a little corn, tomatoes, and not much else; meat was only for special occasions. For the women, getting fish was a dangerous proposition. As the women went to the fishing village, the “brown bag men” as they were called because they carried their belongings in brown paper bags, had special arrangements made. “You want fish? Behind the bush first.” The women were forced to trade their bodies for food to feed their families. High school girls traded their bodies for sanitary supplies or money. Women’s health and education was not a priority there. Enter the non-profit I worked with. Our focus was three-fold. Women and babies’ health, pregnancy prevention for high school girls, and small business opportunities for women. As the saying goes, “If you educate a woman, you educate a family; if you educate a girl, you educate the future” -Queen Rania of Jordan. As a teacher, the education part was my forte. However, we had a very strong association with the doctors there and did training on such basic things as prenatal health and delivering healthy babies. We even taught suctioning of nasal passageways and airways to help babies breathe. The director of our group always asked, “ If we have a call in the middle of the night for a birth, do you want to go?” I always said no. I had delivered four of my own and frankly, I preferred to sleep. One night, a local doctor was not available and our team had a labor and delivery nurse. She needed help, so this time, I went to the “ hospital” with them. It was a bare room in a bare building with no electricity and no lights. The only available light was an oil lamp one of us held up near the birth canal. Water was in a tin basin nearby and blankets came from us. One of us stood near the mother’s head and whispered encouragement or wiped her brow. This is the job I wanted. In a cosmic twist of fate, because of my experience, I was given the job to stand by the nurse and wipe away fecal material as the mother expelled it. As I frowned upon this assignment, I thought back to the scripture, “God loves a cheerful giver.” I volunteered in Kenya, cheerfully, because I wanted to offer God’s love and hope to these people. I reflected that Jesus sat by the lepers and the poor and the unclean. Who was I to say, “I only want to hold the mother’s hand or cradle the newborn?” So, my job, as distasteful as I thought it would be, was necessary for the nurse to do her job and the baby to be born in as clean an environment as possible. One swipe of that towel and it just became part of nature. By the way, there is a little girl in Rusinga Island, Kenya named Marilyn. I pray that she is full of love and chooses to live a life of hope! Lord, help us to choose to give cheerfully in everything we do. Amen Marilyn Watson 41
SMALL CHOICES Wednesday, April 6
Matthew 22:39: And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t imagine that many people are going to argue that loving your neighbor as yourself is a bad idea, but it’s still something we don’t always execute on. When I think about this verse, my mind quickly goes to a big moment, a situation where I can either make a choice to love my neighbor and impact them in a profound way or I can choose to take a more comfortable, easy path and continue to let them suffer. I really struggled trying to think of a time when I faced that big moment, a moment when I chose love and chose hope in a grand and life-changing way. Maybe there are some and they just don’t come to mind. Maybe I just haven’t had those ‘superhero of love’ moments. But as I reflected more, I thought that maybe it shouldn’t boil down to that one moment where choosing love and hope would lead to immediate peace and joy while not choosing love and hope would lead to conflict and distance from God. No. Maybe it is more about the small choices that are made every day, and hopefully, making more small choices out of love and hope than choices out of impulse and avoidance. If I lose my temper with my child and react in anger, it’s not going to send her into a lifetime of therapy…hopefully. At the same time, if I pause and take the path of coaching and responding with love and kindness, it isn’t going to mean I am “parent of the year” either. Rather than thinking about trying to hit a homerun of love and hope, I pray that God guides me to choose these small moments…kind of reduce my strikeout to base hit ratio. Some of that starts with choosing to take care of myself. I am much better at loving my neighbor if I choose to do little, consistent things to love myself. Daily meditation and prayer practice. Exercise. All the little things we all know we should do to be our best selves. Then, when the moment comes to have a calm discussion with a difficult coworker, instead of a confrontation with that person, I am much better positioned to love that neighbor as myself and have an honest, caring conversation. I do get it wrong… a lot… and I will continue to get it wrong, but life isn’t always going to give me those superhero moments where I get to choose love and hope in a way that is worthy of a Hollywood movie. God’s love can work through me as a supporting cast member as much as it can as the top-billed star. Loving God, remind us that you are with us through all of our moments in life, big and small. Help us to understand that even though all of our choices aren’t always made in love, your perfect love is always with us and will work in us to challenge ourselves to choose love in all that we do. Chad Anderson
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HOPE FOR THE BEST Thursday, April 7
Romans 5:5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. My grandfather had a saying. He would tell us, “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” As an optimist, I typically choose to hope for the best, but as a realist, I usually prepare for the worst. I believe that hope and love are choices, and one we make every day. When we wake up, we have no idea what the day will bring, but I used to always err on the side of hope that the day will be good. When my mom was going through issues with her digestive system, I had hope that it was nothing major, but as she started to demand the doctors look more closely into it, the more my hope waned into fear that something was very wrong. Finally, when they did an endoscopic ultrasound, our fears were confirmed – pancreatic cancer and gallbladder disease. Thankfully, the stones in her gallbladder caused the pain she was feeling and all other digestive issues, which allowed the medical team to find the cancer tumors and give us a hopeful outcome. This fall and winter were rocky to say the least and tested my ability to remain hopeful for a good outcome. When I couldn’t find my hope though, I had prayer warriors to help. I’d like to say that we are at the end of this cancer journey, but that’s not the case. I’d like to say that I remain hopeful for a good outcome, but that varies day to day. What I do know is that I have a community of supporters who can help me find that hope when I struggle to. What I know is that our loving God has not left my side, even when I’m not filled with hope, and he will be there with me and my family, no matter the outcome. So I will continue to choose hope and choose love. God of enduring hope and love, please continue to be with those who are struggling to find hope in our world, in our lives, and in each other. I pray that you will continue to work through me and others to choose to love and to hope each day so that your vision for a world united in love will come to fruition. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen. Danielle Mitchell
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ROOTED IN LOVE Friday, April 8
1 Corinthians 16:14: Let all that you do be done in love. One of the hardest things to tackle in life is the end of life. Our entire culture, and lives, revolve around the idea that our lives aren’t infinite, that life, like that which is good and beautiful, comes to an end. A few weeks before Christmas, we found out a family friend had passed away. He left behind his wife, and my three friends, his daughters. It was very sudden. We went to a celebration of his life the week following Christmas. There was a section of the afternoon that was dedicated to people freely coming up, and sharing stories about our friend or what they loved about him. As I sat there and took it all in, I couldn’t help but ponder what I had missed in the life of our friend. Had I fully appreciated his joy, his love, and his life the way I was meant to? The ceremony proceeded, and we enjoyed time with our friends before saying our goodbyes. The stories stuck with me though, and I became stuck with both a question and realization. What would I want people to remember about me? And in contrast, what would people actually remember me by? Were those the same? What stories would they share? And was I living the way I would want to be remembered by? Golly, life is tough and these are hard questions. But maybe by facing these, and by asking ourselves these questions, we can learn to pay attention to what is important day to day. The theme for 2022 is choose love, choose hope. How often in our lives do we miss out on choosing to be in relationship with those around us? I have to ask myself how often I choose to avoid a conversation with someone because I’m in a rush or don’t want to take the time. Everyday, we have thousands of these choices. There is a saying, “There are no wrong decisions”. The theory is, all choices, good or bad, will teach us to learn from them. This isn’t exactly accurate, but I’d like to refine that saying. A choice made in love will never be wrong. Because, really, how can we make a choice that would hurt others if it’s made in love? If we put love first, we also put humanity first. 1 Corinthians 16:14 says, “Do everything in love.” With this idea, of choosing all of your life to be ingrained in love, will we be living in a way we would want to be remembered by? I know I will. As another year comes again to quickly pass us by, take time to think about if you are living in love with each choice you make. A Prayer of Love Lord, change our hearts. Help us see the vision of your creation The vision of love Help us to be rooted, grounded, in your love To pour it out to others Amen Delaney Lim
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HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE? Saturday, April 9
1 Peter 4: 8-11 (NIV): Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen People often marvel at the depth of love when they adopt or give birth to a new child. “I didn’t think I could love another being so much” is a common sentiment. I am fortunate to have been able to have that experience myself when I held both Peter and Louis for the first time. Joyous occasions can certainly be times of experiencing a deep level of love that you have for another. I have also been fortunate, though, to have been on the receiving end of love and been thankful for its depth. Julie and I were married in February of 2003. We were fortunate to celebrate our wedding with family and friends. I was especially thankful that my mother was able to be with us. Mom had successfully battled various cancers for years, but cancer had returned again and this time it was not going to go away. I will always be convinced that our wedding date was a milestone for her in her cancer fight…that it was important for her to see her boy married to this wonderful woman before she could leave this earth. We were barely back from our honeymoon as my mom began to get sicker. Hospitalizations and treatments gave way to the blessed and sad privilege of helping to care for my mom through in-home hospice. This educated and dignified woman – a woman who helped start a preschool and cared for others as a Stephen Minister - could no longer do even the basic things to care for herself. She needed to be cleaned and clothed, to be helped with even a sip of water. Of course, I would do these things because she was my mother. But right there next to me, helping with the most personal of chores, was my wife of only a few months. Caring for my mother! As she helped clean and care for my mom, she showed the depth of love. These were not easy acts of love, like marveling at a newborn, but sad and personal acts. These were not just acts of love for my mom but were acts of love for my dad and for me. And this love helped me with the feelings of grief and loneliness that comes with watching a parent pass away. I knew that we had a deep love when I said “I do” at our wedding ceremony. But several months later, I was able to experience the depth of that love at another level as we helped care for my mom. If you are of a certain age or musical taste, you have heard the classic Bee Gees song “How Deep is Your Love?” If you have not heard the song, please Google it and give it a listen. Once you have heard or remembered this song, there is a good chance that the question in the chorus, “How deep is your love?” will be stuck in your head. As you are trying to get the song un-stuck, let it be a reminder to us to love all and serve all…deeply. Randy McNitt
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WRITING MY WAY INTO LOVE Monday, April 11
Proverbs 16:24: Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. I have always written poetry. In fact, I think I began writing poetry before I even fully understood what poetry was, if poetry can be defined in any certain way. For me, poetry has always been a process for responding to what I see and experience in the world around me, both seen and unseen. In this regard, I think it was a natural progression for my poetry to become a tool of contemplation, an essential part of my spiritual practice. Contemplative practice is a cornerstone in the major religious traditions, as well as nonreligious spiritual practice. Some call it meditation, some call it prayer. Others might see it as a combination of practices, or something else entirely. But I think many practitioners would agree that contemplation is an opportunity to put the ego aside, to live in a moment where barriers are broken down and everything is connected, is whole. In Christian contemplation, this often takes the form of finding the God of love within ourselves and our lives. Richard Rohr, Franciscan priest and ecumenical teacher, explains that “a mystic is one who recognizes God’s image and likeness in this human being, in this creature, in this moment, and comes to see God everywhere and always.” Contemplative practice is often the way we train ourselves to engage in the Perennial Wisdom of the mystics and discover God’s love within ourselves and everything around us. I hesitate to assign a definition to contemplative poetry because I don’t believe there is a singular aspect that identifies a contemplative poem, and to some degree, all poetry is contemplative in nature. But I can tell you what contemplative poetry has been for me in terms of how creating these poems have become a spiritual practice in my life. For me, contemplative poetry is a way to tap into this mystic understanding, to grapple with the mystery of God, the benevolent love energy that connects us all, and to train myself to choose to live with a heart of love, with open eyes for the wonder and beauty that is all around me. My journey into creating contemplative poetry has done a great deal for me. It has provided me with a space where I can synthesize spiritual teachings into something that is both concrete and evocative. It has helped me ask questions, wrestle with doubt, and continually center myself to live with a heart of love. With every poem I write, I am getting closer to living into my calling as a Child of God, to putting light and love at the forefront of everything I do. I will end with this. Poet and philosopher Mark Nepo said that, “To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.” May you find the poetry in your daily living and may it begin to make you new. Here’s a contemplative poem I wrote for the season of Lent to help me center. I hope it centers you as well.
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Dwelling Place I am a dwelling place for love. As the robin builds her nest of sticks and twigs, woven together, clumps of grass and dirt, so my body, muscle and bone, blood and marrow, becomes a living house. Stephanie Harper, Assistant to the Lead Pastor *taken from an essay published by Grok Nation
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CHANGING FAMILY Tuesday, April 12
Psalm 147:3: He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Twenty years ago, the first week of my freshman year in college, I met a guy. We dated very briefly and it didn’t work out, but we became great friends. Four years later, we found ourselves together again. After a few months, we became engaged and pregnant all within a week. Shortly thereafter, things went haywire. In the end, 6 months pregnant and the engagement off, I left and came home. Talk about brokenhearted. I wanted nothing more than for the 3 of us to be a traditional family. Granted, my daughter and I are a family, but I never lost the hope that I’d find someone who wanted us both. You know, the kind of guy you see in Hallmark movies. No such luck. It’s been 15 years now that I’ve been a single parent, raising my/our daughter alone. There was no contact with her father after she’d been about 4 months old and that’s just the way it was. But as time went by, my daughter had questions. When she was 4, I could satisfy her inquiries with his first name, hair and eye color (blonde and blue, just like her). But when she was 14, the questions were more robust and only spawned more questions. It was time to pull out the backpack she’d never noticed of all the things. Months later we took the trip back to my college town where we’d been talking about. We’d stop and see my college friend, visit the college, etc. We also met up with my ex’s mom and stayed the night with her. The next day we went with her to see his dad. My/our daughter now had met her paternal grandparents. A couple of days later, we had lunch with his sister (and her husband and their daughter). Now my daughter has another aunt, uncle, and cousin. Then, the big one, I sent a message to him that we were in town. BOOM, mic drop. She spent the next couple of days meeting him and a literal handful of siblings. She has a dad now, HER dad, she even uses the word dad. She has a sister and brothers, and she’s the oldest rather than an only. I have to remember to say OUR daughter and not just mine, even though I’m still technically a single parent. And, get this, we found out that we’re not done with each other. Now we’re spending weekends together, sharing holidays, shopping for more people, trying to make plans. And that’s hard to do 700 miles apart. Things aren’t fixed or settled. In fact, it’s somewhat unsettling sometimes. There will always be questions, still broken heartedness to heal and wounds to bind. But we’re all choosing to hope and to love one another. God, heal our brokenness, bind our wounds. Give us courage to forgive, and faith to continue building. Amen TeLacey Zerr
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HOPE IS AN ACTION WORD Wednesday, April 13
1 Peter 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This “choose hope” thing sounds great on a bumper sticker or t-shirt. But really? How do you choose hope when the future looks so dim? Mom has been getting slower, more easily fatigued, and less sturdy physically. She chalked it up to old age, but I suspected something more sinister and insisted we visit the doctor. We quickly found out she has acute myeloid leukemia—blood cancer. For an 88-year-old, it is a terminal diagnosis. Suddenly, we have been thrust into the world of multiple blood samples, transfusions, and other miracles of modern medicine. CBC, HCT, RBC, ABO, are the new letter combos of our alphabet. I mentioned my mom’s leukemia to an acquaintance who said, “well, I hope she gets better soon!” Nope, highly unlikely, a cure would be nothing short of a miracle. Not that I don’t believe in miracles, but the reality we must plan for is that she will not get better. Hope is a funny thing in our culture. This interaction and a recent sermon encouraged me to delve deeper into what is hope and how can I choose hope in the face of a situation that seems hopeless. Hope isn’t the same as half-glass-full thinking (blind optimism). You can hope when your glass is only a third full or even completely empty. Hope is seeing that in addition to the water in the glass there is air and room for more water. True hope is not about living in a fantasy world, rather, it is about not denying suffering and pain, yet choosing to fully live in this one. It is about being forward-thinking without denying the realities in this moment. Turns out there are studies that have been conducted to differentiate between hope and optimism. They have found that with people who have experienced tragedy or trauma, the outcomes for “hopeful” people are significantly better than those of “optimistic” people. Like love, hope can be a feeling, but is more fully expressed as an action. Hope, like love, won’t just magically show up. We must exercise it and work at it. Fortunately, hope gets easier as you choose it more often. It demands that we look at the chaos, danger, and fear around us, the frustration and disappointment in our lives and the lives of others, and the insurmountable challenges that face us, and refuse to accept defeat. Hope in its purest form spurs us to action. The reality is my mother will most likely die before she sees another Christmas. What is my hope? I hope that while she is still alive, she LIVES. Hope in action might look like eating ice cream for dinner, visiting a museum, and enjoying breakfasts at her favorite restaurant. I hope that she can have a respectful death that retains her dignity. Hope in action looks like forgoing painful treatments that only prolong death and putting in place advanced directives. Most importantly, I trust in the promises found in the resurrection. The last word will not be “old age,” it will not be leukemia—my hope is in Christ Jesus. Love and life always win; always, even in death. Oh, Great Jehovah, although it may look dark sometimes, you are always with me. You go before me and walk with me. In challenging times, help me choose hope and grant me the courage and strength to act on that hope. Amen Lisa Selzler
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MAUNDY THURSDAY Thursday, April 14
John 13:34: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. For those of us who grew up in the church, we are probably familiar with the Thursday before Easter known as “Maundy Thursday.” For those of you who did not, or who may have grown up in a non-liturgical church, this might be a new concept. But whether you have grown up with this or not, have you ever wondered what “maundy” means? Maundy Thursday is the day when we traditionally celebrate Jesus sharing the last supper with the disciples. It would have been a passover celebration with many friends and relatives in attendance. During the supper in John, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples (John 13:1). In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus takes the bread and wine and gives it to those gathered saying “Take and eat...” and “Drink this all of you..” (Mt 26:26-27) and to “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Lk 22:19) Again in John, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34) You see, Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum, where we get the word “mandate.” It means “command.” It’s on this day, when Jesus is in his final moments loving and instructing the gathered followers, he leaves them with commands; wash the feet of the other (serve), eat and drink of the promise of God in the meal so that you do not forget who you are, and above all, love. Love one another. It becomes the very hallmark of what it means to be the people of the Jesus-way. How we love one another is how we will set ourselves apart from the other. We love by the way we serve the other. We love when we remember the covenant in bread and wine that we are children of God. We love; it’s just what we do. To choose love is not just a way of kindness, it’s the way we show we are the people who follow the teachings of Jesus. And this is not something that is asked of us, it is commanded. It is not “if we feel like it,” it is a necessary part of being a child of God. This Maundy Thursday, may your heart and will be resolute to follow the Jesus commandment to love one another. In this, we will show we are the people of God. Spirit of love, restore in us a new heart that we may follow the command to love one another. Amen Pastor Jay Gamelin, Lead Servant for Family Life
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THE PATH OF LOVE Good Friday, April 15
John 15:13: No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Throughout his life, all Jesus did was love. No matter what he might have breathed in – injustice, brokenness, hatred – he exhaled love. Jesus loved because it was in his DNA. He is the child of Love, for God is love. Love is intentional. It is love that leads to healing, redemption, and wholeness. The cross erected before us on this day forever stands as a symbol of God’s movement to renew, restore, and reconcile everything, just as God originally intended it. The events that occurred on that Good Friday were a result of Jesus’ persistence to choose love in every moment. But to love as Jesus loved would mean sacrifice, change, and transformation - none of which are easy or always desired. Love challenges systems that rely on power, suppression, and injustice. For Jesus, choosing love would lead to death, yet that did not deter him. The same is true for us. To consistently choose love leads to the death of our selfish intentions and desires. It leads to the death of our desire for control and dependence on systems of power. It leads to the death of our own apathy and inactivity. Jesus also knew that, through death, all things would be made new, and new life would be discovered through re-creation and transformation. While the path of love may lead to death, it doesn’t end there, for with God, death does not have the final word. It may be difficult to love, and maybe even painful at times, but through Love comes new life. Joy will come in the morning! From manger to tomb a life of love Nurtured in love Teacher of love Suffered in love. Born that all might experience the fullness of love. Died so all may be restored in love. Buried for all to be united by love. The path of love leads to the tomb not to languish in defeat or raise the victor’s sigh of relief But to testify that love bears all things hopes all things endures all things. It is here, in this, our darkest hour where love is revealed as grief and hope is disheartened by despair. But… as it has done through all of time God’s light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome. For in the evening we may weep yet joy comes with the morning. In Christ’s suffering, death has been defeated Love has won.
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And this is enough reason to call this Friday Good. God who is Love, let the events of this Good Friday stir in us that we may replicate your love in this broken world. Knowing your love brings healing and wholeness, help us to choose love in ways that precipitate healing and wholeness so all people may experience new life. Amen Glenn Hecox, Lead Servant for Worship Life
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REST
Holy Saturday, April 16 Psalm 31: 15-16 My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. I vividly remember the first Holy Saturday of the pandemic. I remember talking with people leading up to Holy Week about the revelation that we were experiencing the most Holy Saturday of our lives. That Holy Saturday was an opportunity to stop distracting ourselves from the pain of our world and really sit in it as Jesus’ original followers did. I remember resolving to not watch Tiger King or anything else that day, to make sure I read the news, to really look at our world for what it was rather than moving straight to a silver lining or just giving up on dealing with the world all together and baking some brownies. But now I see Holy Saturday a bit differently. You see, Jesus’ early followers didn’t sit in their pain on that day because they wanted to, they sat in their pain because God commanded the whole world to rest just as God rests. They put off preparing Jesus’ body for burial, and gathering people over a meal, and maybe even finding distractions because rest is Holy. And because we have always been a people created for rest. Lately it has felt to me as if we are still in that first Holy Saturday, from 2020. Still waiting for our world to be resurrected from the pain. And yet, the world is expecting us to function at our pre-pandemic levels and, at least for me, that has been exhausting. When life is exhausting, our psalmists remind us that God has our time figured out. That God will make good, full lives out of our time if we set aside our worldly ideas about how we should be spending it. Maybe our enemy is simply anyone/anything that tells us we have to do more, that our time is not being spent as productively as it “should” be, that we should not rest. Maybe the most holy thing we can do this Holy Saturday, and all the days following is to find true rest. To dance or sing or play or read or bake or whittle or bike or whatever it is that sets your soul on fire - and then take a nap. After all, honoring the sabbath, keeping Holy rest, is one of the most clear commandments in the bible. Maybe that’s what will carry us through. How can you make time in your life to rest? Pastoral Intern Lindsay Bates
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THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD Easter Sunday, April 17
Luke 24:5: The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” I’ve had a few scary experiences in my life, but the scariest by far occurred at the time of the birth of our daughter, Sarah. It was Thursday, August 14, 1997. Sarah was born around 11:30 am. For the first couple of hours, everything seemed to be ok and then we learned that Karrie was hemorrhaging. They could not get the bleeding to stop. I watched in horror as her color became ashen and she could not remain alert or awake. They wheeled Karrie into emergency surgery and I was left sitting alone in the room where our daughter had just been born a few hours earlier. I felt alone. Completely alone. Our family had gone out to get something to eat and I could not reach them (no cell phones at that time). As I sat praying and crying in the chair I had slept in the previous night, a nurse came into the room to ask if she could give Sarah formula since Karrie was incapacitated. I didn’t know. This was a decision that Karrie would make. The nurse could see my fear and uncertainty. She invited me to come down to the nursery with her. The nurse assured me that it would be ok to give Sarah a bit of “sugar water” to hold her over until Karrie came out of surgery. She invited me to sit in a rocking chair and she brought Sarah over to me. I’ll never forget Sarah looking up at me as I rocked her in the chair. She had no idea what was happening with her mother. She seemed safe and secure in my arms. I distinctly remember the feeling of anxiety as I thought to myself, “I’m in over my head. I have no idea what I’m doing or even what I’m supposed to be doing.” After about an hour and a half the doctor came and found me. He had seen the horror on my face when Karrie was taken to surgery and I’m sure he could still see that I was not ok. He was smiling. I stood as he grabbed both my shoulders and said, “We got it. Karrie is going to be ok.” I cried again. I’m mindful that the only reason my wife is alive today is because we have access to excellent healthcare. Childbirth continues to be a leading cause of death among women in various places around the world. Had we been Haitian, Karrie would have died. It’s difficult to choose love and choose hope in every situation. The women who went to the tomb were crestfallen until the two men in dazzling clothes gave them the good news that Jesus had been raised. I was surrounded by some dazzling people on the scariest day of my life. While I could not choose love or hope because the depth of my fear was so great, others did it for me. They held me. They comforted me. They stood with me. And for that I thank God. May we be people who choose love and choose hope not only within our own lives, but in support and care for others. May we be angels in dazzling clothes who bring the good news that love and life win so that we and all the world may experience real life in Jesus’ name.
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Resurrecting God, thank you for surrounding us with angels who walk with us, hold us, and assure us that love and life win. May we be such messengers led by your Spirit sent to bring good news to all in Jesus’ name. Amen Pastor Doug Hill, Lead Pastor
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