As we are called to see ourselves and each other as earthen vessels that hold God’s presence and bring God’s gifts to the world, so too, this very world and all that is above, around, and within it are earthen vessels — just as easily shattered, just as much in need of our loving attentiveness and support. May our hands align with God’s in caressing and shaping these. Together we proclaim: We, and all creation are...
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Loving Heavenly Father, I come again to worship you in the wonder of who you are. I confess my sins to you, dear Heavenly Father. Wash me clean in my Savior’s precious blood from all that offends you. I recognize with my person a fleshly nature that can be rebellious in your sight. I affirm that in my union with Christ in his death I am dead to the rule of the fleshly nature. I desire the new nature you have placed within me to be in...
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My daughter-in-law, Khouria Jocelyn Mathewes, has a good column today on repentance, as we head into Great Lent. She makes a point about accepting forgiveness for past sins (not the ones that continue in the present, but completed deeds in the past). She reminds us that we must accept forgiveness and move on, and not keep revisiting them and “beating yourself up.” I think that, when we continue to be distraught over a forgiven sin in...
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(by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt) Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of...
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