Stubbornness

One of my grandsons is beyond stubborn, and what he is yet too young to realize is that this stubbornness only results in problems for him.  He has a big problem with cleaning up.  When I visited there last month I witnessed an incident about some spilled goldfish crackers.  All he had to do was pick them up and put them back in his bowl.  He refused.  He went to time out.  A little while later he listened to the “you need to do what Mommy asks” lecture, and he was released from time out.  He walked into the living room.  My daughter said, “pick up the goldfish”….  and without missing a beat he turned on his heel and walked back to the time out spot.   He would rather spend time in “time out”  than attend to a simple task.  His stubbornness on this matter resulted in him being in time out for almost 2 hours the other day.  Every time he was let go, he would again refuse to pick up the toys he had thrown…. and back into “time out” he went.

The worst part of this is that in the end what results is a power struggle between him and his mother,and I can tell you from experience that she also has a stubborn streak, but I don’t ever remember her sticking to her attitude for quite as long as her youngest son.

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about stubbornness and its implications for us in daily living.  Personalityspirituality.net  defines stubbornness as:   dogged insistence, intransigence, temerity and pig-headedness.  To that list I would add:  determination and persistence.

I believe that the latter two actually do serve us well.  When we are faced with difficult challenges the positive side of stubbornness–the determination to succeed at a task and the persistence to see something finished can actually be healthy.  Those traits are what makes us good parents, exemplary employees, and friends that hang in for the long haul.  It seems to me however that there is a fine line between healthy determination and pig-headedness.  To be pig-headed is to refuse to change even to the point of ridiculousness.

We have all known people who live by the following credos…
I am not going to be the first person to say,  I’m Sorry.
I called her last time, this time she has to call me.
I’d rather give up an activity that I enjoy than go when that person is there.

When people get that locked into their refusal to budge, change, forgive or relax about any issue or person I always want to ask the question, “Who is being hurt by your attitude?”

Those of you who watch the Big Bang Theory last night will have seen the point of ridiculousness that this can lead to.  In short Sheldon’s parking space, which he never uses because he neither drives nor owns a car, was given to Howard.  A fight ensued.  And the issue was only resolved when Howard (not so graciously) gave the space back to Sheldon, and Sheldon who could not let anyone be the better man than he, gave the space back to Howard.

We may shake our heads at the ridiculousness of this argument and the stubborn, nay pig-headedness, of Sheldon and Howard as the fight escalated…. but come on, we all know people who would cut off their nose to spite their face, and who will hold onto old grudges beyond all reason.

In fact, this is a common human spiritual problem.  In the Scriptural record God often lamented that we are a hard hearted, stiff necked people.  As long as we stubbornly refuse to incline our hearts to God we will remain outside of God’s blessing.  Proverbs 29: 1 tells us:  Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.  And yet we persist in refusing to heed God’s warning.  

I can tell you that there have been times in my relationship with God that I turned away and stubbornly refused to hear him calling me to return.  I often refer to that time as “the storm of my own making”.

Psalm 95 says:

8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,

as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors tested me;

they tried me, though they had seen what I did.

10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;

I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,

and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oathr in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

What I marvel at is that I not only chose the problems I encountered, I also chose to persist in them.  That is the nature of free will.  We are free to choose how we live our lives.   We can choose to live without God or we can choose to live with God.  If we choose to live without God then God has no option but to let us go, and no option but to leave us struggling in the storm we have created.

Since coming back to God I have experienced other storms, after all no one’s life is storm free.  I would much rather go through a storm with God than without him.  There is a big difference in knowing that God is taking care of you through the present difficulty.  There is a big difference in the strength of hope, faith and prayer through which the present problem is put into perspective.

I am profoundly grateful that I don’t have to live in stubborn insistence that I don’t need God’s help.  I am deeply relieved that God has provided a way to remove my hardness of heart, and to turn it instead to him.  Thank God, that in Jesus we have a way of giving up the power-struggle in which we were engaged.  Thank God that in Jesus we have the opportunity to repent, turn our lives around and seek forgiveness and take on the daily challenge of living as a person called of  God.

As we enter the season of Advent this is an important thing to reflect on.  As we listen to John the Baptist calling the people to repentance do we want to be those of a soft heart and come into the blessing of Christ?  Or do we want to remain stubborn and allow that hardness of heart keep us wandering in the wilderness?  How stubborn is your heart?  What will it take for you to bend?  The choice is ours.

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Trusting God

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Christianity, Confidence, God, hope, Jesus, prayer, Religion, spirituality, Trust

The last few days the hymn “Simply Trusting Every Day” has been going through my head.  These words resonate strongly with me, because right now, at half-pay and no clear indication of where God is sending me next, that trust that I have in him, is all that I have.  And that’s not half-bad.  These are the words….

• Simply trusting every day;
  Trusting through a stormy way;
  Even when my faith is small,
  Trusting Jesus, that is all.
• Trusting as the moments fly,
  Trusting as the days go by,
  Trusting Him, whate’er befall,
  Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Source: http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/569#ixzz2DSX5pBeC

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The one thing that I always want to model is the faith and trust that I have in God.  And that seemed to be a theme that came up again and again today in the discussions that we had at the Covenant Group that I belong to.  One person talked about a dream he was having and waking up to the epiphany moment of the question…..”What if God shuts his eyes for a couple of minutes.”  That thought turned a vivid nightmare into something to laugh about, because after all God neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Even in my current stormy way, I know that God cares for me, and that he cares deeply about the current trials and tribulations of my life.  It is a true gift to be able to relax and leave the worrying to God.  I’m not saying that I don’t take up the worry bone from time to time, but what I am doing is to learn to drop it so that God can carry it.  And oh it is such a blessed relief to let go and let God.

I have no doubt that the commitment that I have made to spend time with God on a daily basis is making a difference in my ability to trust him.  Filling myself with his word, and coming to know him in prayer and learning to listen for his voice in the silence, keeps me grounded in the source of all blessing.  Today as part of our Bible Study we read Psalm 1, and the Translation “The Message” by Eugene Peterson says,

How well God must like you—
you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,
you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.

Instead you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom.

I love that image of being replanted in Eden.  There is a great deal of comfort and hope in that image.  I don’t need to strive and worry.  I don’t need to plot and scheme.  I just need to let go and let God and he will take care of it.

The one thing that I am most certain about is that God will take care of the calling he has given me.  There is a new congregation for me to go to…. in God’s time.

A friend who is wondering where her calling will take her next put it this way in her blog

I’ve surrendered and now I wait. I wait to be moved and changed and pushed where I need to go. I wait to discover the permanent place God wants me. I’ve surrendered into waiting and in that waiting I’m learning patience, trust and exercising more faith than I might’ve thought possible.                                                                 Becky, at http://www.ministrytomotherhood.com/2012/11/27/surrender/

I like that.  There is a sense of calmness and sureness.  This is hope that is grounded deep in God and which rests on God’s everlasting arms.  That display of confidence in God makes me want to sing with abandon….

• Trusting as the moments fly,
  Trusting as the days go by,
  Trusting Him, whate’er befall,
  Trusting Jesus, that is all.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable love and his constant care.

commitment or calling?

Tags

calling, Christianity, God, Jesus, prayer, Religion

The sign on one of the churches in town says, Our commitment to Christ is a daily calling.  

This week I have been reflecting on Christ the King as I have prepared for Sunday’s Service.  And this sign just pushed my thoughts in a whole other direction.  

Christ as King, is our Lord, and we serve him….but do we commit to serve him or are we called to serve him?  I see these as two separate things.

We make commitments all the time:
to meet for lunch
to conduct the meeting
to bring the snack for break-time

and if the truth were to be told, those are entirely flexible comittments.  Two nights ago I was committed to conduct a part of a worship service, installing the new moderator and getting that particular job off of my to do list.  I prepared with pleasure, and got out the gavel, ready to pass it on.  But, all week I had been battling the flu and come that night I realized that not only would I likely not make it, if I did no one wanted me there.  As commitments go, that one was entirely expendable.  

There are other commitments however that fall into the category of calling.  It is a calling to take care of another person.  No parent gets up in the morning and says, “I’m tired of being a parent.  Today is my day off.  No diapers, no bottles, no bath time–the baby can stay in the crib and cry.”  Well you don’t say it if you love your child and intend to keep him/her in your life forever.

No cat owner would ever presume to think that they could skip feeding the cat or cleaning the box…said cat will never let you forget that you have not met the obligations of your calling as a cat slave…. seriously…. if I decide to sleep in, which I do more often since I developed  this iron deficiency problem, there will be annoying reminders of his hunger.  First, he will march across the bed, shove his face in mine (I presume to see if I am alive).  Then he will tap my face.  Then he will start knocking things down off the bedside table.  Then if things don’t work he’ll start knocking things off the dresser.  Fortunately I have since wised up, but once he took off with my glasses….they now live in a drawer until I get dressed….but if that drawer is open even a crack he will start fishing in it….

So to my mind a calling is something that you do… Rain, Sun, Snow whatever a calling is something that is a top, if not “the” top priority in your life.

But this calling to be a child of God, doesn’t have those same insistent reminders.  God does not wail from Heaven (at least not that I’ve heard lately) and he does not poke and annoy you until you get up and remember to fulfill your calling.  God waits patiently, every time we decide that we don’t have time to read Scripture and pray.  God stands silently by every time we decide that we can’t reach out to someone in need.  God watches every time we are rude or unkind.  And God waits for us to return, to confess and re-affirm that we will indeed follow him and serve him all the days of our lives.

I know that these past few weeks I have been guilty of ignoring that calling.  Since my return from vacation I have been trying to get caught up on work stuff (still not there), in the hospital for an iron infusion and down with the flu.  Even last night with that church sign on my mind, I fell asleep reading Scripture…There are times when my level of involvement in this calling is low to minimal to non-existent.  What I truly am is grateful that I live in grace and that I do have the chance to serve with love and faith again and again.

Do I wish that God was as persistent as a crying baby or a cat?  Sometimes.  But to be honest I don’t think it would make that much difference, because like most people I am perfectly capable of ignoring the Holy Spirit when it suits me.  And I have learned that if you ignore the Holy Spirit, that he becomes silent, or perhaps I get deafer.  I know that God nagging me to spend time with him is not the answer.

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The answer is for me to live out my calling.  To spend time with the one who loves me more than any other.  To learn from him how to love.  To learn from him how to give selflessly.  To learn from him what living out a calling means.  This is my true freedom.

 

Giving love back

Tags

Christianity, God, Jesus, love, prayer, Religion, spirituality

The past few days I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the energy we put into relationships, with our family, friends, and the pets in our lives.  On Grimm’s Furry Tail, http://grimmsfurrytail.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/the-furry-tail/ I read the story of how Grimm’s owners were wanting to put him to sleep for having an intestinal infection that would take a long time to treat, and how he was rescued and brought into a loving home simply because of his happy never still tail.  In that home he has repaid the love given to him in multiple ways.

basking in the sun, and lying “sticky side up”

That story reminded me of one of the most amazing cats that I have ever had the opportunity to share a home with.  Thanks to my daughter, Tigger came to live with us one cold winter.  She was smuggling hot soup and hot water out to him, then I softened and we built him a cozy home outdoors, then I softened and we let him in, our other cats got along with him very well from the start and thus he came to be a part of our family.  Unfortunately the urge to be outside was still very strong in him.  As a result he ended up with infected bites from the many fights he found himself in.  The last such bite we did what we always did and carried him off to the vet and had it lanced and treated.  From there things got worse as the infection spread, he was in a coma, and then the infection was walled off and he lost his skin all down one leg.  A thousand dollars later we were on first name terms with the vet and no longer paying for office visits, just the cost of treatment.  Many times friends advised me to quit throwing good money away and just have the cat put to sleep.  But we had invested so much and he was getting better, although so slowly you could hardly see it.  There was just something that we could not let go of, we loved that boy and we couldn’t just give up on him.  Years later when he died, he still had some patches of skin that had never grown back, and we were always reminding him to lay sticky side up, but the joy and the love that he gave us could not be measured.  His love and devotion knew no end.  Although I have owned other cats, and my daughter has owned other cats we agree that Tigger was the most amazing cat ever.

So all of this has caused me to reflect on the nature of God’s love for us.  He gathers us in, and we insist on going off on our own way.  He brings us back in, heals our hurts and wounds and before long we are insisting that we can take care of ourselves.  He sends his son to die to redeem us and we still insist on going our own way.  God has poured out his love for us in a most costly fashion.  He didn’t give up on us, even when the cost meant deep personal pain for him.  

I was reading in one of my on the go books last week that the time we spend with God should be a delight and a joy rather than a chore.  The author pointed out that all too often we treat the spiritual disciplines, study, prayer, worship, etc. as a chore that must be accomplished as a part of our spiritual journey.  He pointed out that we should rather think of it as an opportunity to spend time with God and express to him our overflowing love and gratitude for all that he has given to us.  

We need to be more like Grimm who wags his tail enthusiastically whenever he sees his owner.  We need to be more like Tigger who purred and loved and rubbed and showed his love to us all the time.  God has done so much and loved so much, lets spend time with him merely as a way of showing him that we love him back.

 

it’s the little things

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Every day I am reminded that when we live in an attitude of joy, it really only takes the little things to please us and make our joy tank full to overflowing.

I was grocery shopping in a store that has recently been beautifully renovated. It is bright and shiny and nicely laid out.  

I had barely started to make my way through the produce section, when a woman came up to me and said, “I think they have a woman in charge here.  I was just in the bathroom and it is beautiful and very clean.”  She could hardly contain her excitement, she was bubbling over with it.  A pretty and very clean bathroom was all it took.

I continued to make my way through the store and was myself amazed.  I hadn’t been there in a while, but I was looking for some things the small store in my own town doesn’t carry.  Not only did I find everything on my special list, I also found a plethora of new gluten free products.  I felt like a kid in a candy store, wondering which products to try first.

Sometimes it is the same way when I read Scripture, or an inspirational book.  There is so much there.  What do I focus on, and what do I meditate on, because God’s goodness just overflows in what I read and see.  So often the small things that God does are reflected in my life with great joy and I am so grateful.  It makes me wonder, do I then in turn find sources of inspiration in all the Scripture I read because I already know joy?  I worry about the people who read Scripture, or pray, or read inspirational books and get nothing out of them.  I always encourage them to try again, and I pray that they will come to know God in  a deeper way, so that they will be able to see the wonder of his hand in everything around them.

Today I have seen God’s hand in the kind call of a friend…. the extremely pastoral and understanding comment in another friend’s email ……. in the kindness of a stranger who assisted me in the parking lot at the store…. the conversation I had with a lovely woman in the parking lot of my townhouse….

It really is those multitude of small things that add up, and make me say, “Wow, God is good and he has surrounded me with good people.”  

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In weeks like this which have been full and busy, and included tough decisions and tough news, those little love bombs from God make so much difference.  

All I can say is “thank you God.” …. and if you have been one of those people who love bombed me today…. “thank you.  Your kindness and grace mean the world to me.”

 

connected

Tags

Connections, God, holy spirit, Jesus, Power, prayer, self discovery

connected to power

Yesterday I was in the hospital having the second of what will be my quarterly iron infusions.  When you call to confirm your appointment, they remind you it will take 5 hours (actually closer to 6) and to bring your lunch and a book or something to do.

So I eagerly packed a new book that I have been wanting to get into, “The Me I want to be” by John Ortberg and a pen and notepad to take notes, because I thought I would be able to take some of the insights and work them into a blog.

connected to tubing

What I had forgotten from the first time, is that for the procedure you are connected to tubing–to infuse the iron, and cables and cuff–to track your blood pressure, and wires and a paper clip thingy–to read your blood oxygen levels.  Holding a book and writing are a challenge.  To make the challenge worse, my veins are hard to find, and with the cold weather they had withdrawn (the last time the complaint was that in the heat veins are hard to find because people are dehydrated–there is no winning, apparently).  As a consequence the vein that was finally found was further up my hand and the needle felt like it ended at the point where my wrist bends.  Holding a book was manageable, but holding a pen and writing caused a sticking into you type of pain…. as a consequence my plan to be productive was thwarted.

That’s okay, because what it gave me was time.  Time to be.  Time to snooze.  Time to think.  Time to ponder. Time to meditate.  It was nice to have no particular agenda, and to just think about what I wanted to think about, talk with the people around me and get to know the nurse/specialist better.  It was very comforting to have the same nurse as I had had in July.  It made the whole long day seem a little like spending time with a friend.  This time we got to know one another better, swapped stories about our grandchildren and talked about the inconsequential things that helped us get to know one another.  I know that in February I will see her again, and that she will remember me and have all of my information at hand.  There is a connection there, even if it is only professionally based and limited to those long hours in ambulatory care.

my main job is to be connected to God

That lead me to spending time thinking about one of the things that Ortberg talks about in his book.  He writes: “My main job is to remain connected to God.”  That connection begins with relationship building.  God knows us, he knows us well, after all he created us.  But we don’t know God at all without beginning that journey of sharing stories, talking about the daily stuff of life, and sharing the deep, deep things that matter.  In that process, we also learn more about who we are…. the real down deep us who we were created to be.

I have always taught and preached that our spiritual journey is about discovering and becoming the person that God created us to be.  Ortberg talks about the same thing in this book, and I know that I am really going to enjoy discovering his view of that all important topic.  For me, the more I am in touch with God and the more I know and embrace the person that I was created to be, the more I discover the power and joy that accompanies God’s blessing.

connected to the power of the Holy Spirit

Ortberg points out that when we are connected with God, then everything else has a way of falling into place and that when we are not connected with God our vitality suffers and we become lesser versions of ourselves.  That makes sense to me.  When I am connected with God then my other relationships are better.  I am kinder and more patient.  I have more empathy for those who come to me for help.  I am more able to speak the truth in love when the truth needs to be confronted.   When I am connected with God, the spiritual disciplines that I undertake are a joy and they fill me with hope and confidence.  When I am connected with God the Holy Spirit’s power is present in the work that I do, the sermons that I prepare…

The more connected I am with God, the more I know the person He made me to be, the aware I am of the life, the people and the needs that are around me.  And the more effective I am at everything that I do.

This is not always true in my life, and boy do I notice the difference.  I think I am really going to enjoy exploring this relationship between myself and God and finding out a whole lot more in the process of who God created me to be.  Who knows where this could lead?

Remembrance Day

Tags

God, gratitude, prayer, Remembrance Day, War

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Tomorrow marks a day of Remembrance.  In worship services in churches and at cenotaphs we will gather to remember those who have fought for and won the freedoms that we enjoy and all too often take for granted.  Those who have fought have done so at a great personal cost, and all have returned from war forever altered in body, mind, or spirit.

On this day I think of those who have given so much for the freedom and the rights of others.  Those who worked in underground organizations, those who fought on the front lines, those who endured destruction, devastation and horror all around them.  We can never know what this has cost them.

On Remembrance Day I often think of Don.  Don was a WW II veteran, who was stationed mainly in Belgium.  Whenever he spoke of the war years he told stories about the wonderful landlady at the home in which he was billeted.  He spoke of her sneaking into the bedrooms of the soldiers at night and gathering up their boots, taking them and polishing them and returning them in the morning.  This act of care and nurture was an oasis of comfort in what must surely have been the most difficult time in Don’s life.  We can never underestimate the depth of comfort and care that Don and the other soldiers received in that simple action.  We can never underestimate the depth of love and gratitude that accompanied that nightly chore.  I have a sense of how much her kindness meant because Don kept making appointments to talk with me about the things that happened in Belgium.

We met a few times, and every time Don started to tell the story of what had happened to him and his fellow soldiers he couldn’t continue.  As he broke down in tears he apologized for being so weak.  The truth is, this man was not weak, but rather, was strong beyond all knowing.  What he suffered and endured was so painful it could not be spoken of, and he carried all that pain deep within his being.  Whereas we can never know the extent of Don’s pain, or the pain of all others who served, God does, and God sends care and comfort in human form…. in gracious landladies, in people who lovingly listen, in those who take the time to work with returning veterans to ensure that their rights for ongoing care are never neglected.

This Remembrance Day, my prayers will include thanks for all those who have fought in the past world wars, but they will also include all those who have fought in recent wars and all those who are still engaged in missions in places of conflict.  Fighting for the freedom of others is a noble and courageous undertaking and we must never forget that the freedoms we have are due to the selfless service of unknown men and women.

Remember and give thanks for the veterans who have fought and for those who continue to fight.  Seek to show them respect and honor.  Stand up for veterans to ensure that decent health care and mental health care will be given to them upon their return.  Give thanks and pray.

Pray especially for peace.  Peace of mind for veterans.  Peace and justice and liberty in all areas of the world that are in conflict.  Peaceful hearts and peaceful intentions in those who lead countries or factions or movements.

Let us all do our part for peace, and let us all remember.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

We will remember them.

I know that God loves me and cares for me

Tags

faith, God, prayer, Religion, spirituality, Trust

I know that God loves me and cares for me.  I do.  More to the point there have been times in my life when God’s care and providence have proven themselves to be right there at the point when I most needed them.  

The last week or so, I have been facing the unfortunate reality of half time work.   Managing rent and all the other sundry expenses, as well as unexpected repairs to my car have brought me into the zone of worrying about tomorrow.  Prayers seem more like lectures where I remind God that he has promised to bless me and prosper me and that it is time, RIGHT NOW, to reveal the location to which he is next calling me to minister.

Then last night in my devotional time I was reflecting on the steadfast love of God, and his eternal care and I realized that my troubles are indeed important to God, but that he sees them from an eternal perspective as balanced by the greater blessing he has planned than the immediate solution that I am seeking.  (sorry for the long convoluted sentence folks)  

Today on my cousin’s facebook feed I found this inspiration: 

I realized that, for me, giving up on God is not an option.  God does not and will not give up on me, and I will not give up on him. Despite what I see around me, I am blessed and loved and cared for.  I have options.  So at this point I reaffirm that I choose to follow and serve God no matter where that journey may lead me.  Moreover, I affirm that I will trust God to take care of me in all circumstances.  

I will not  give up.

I will continue to trust.

I will serve the Lord.

Last night I meditated on these verses from Psalm 119:

⁸⁹ Your word, Lord, is eternal;
    it stands firm in the heavens.
⁹⁰ Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
    you established the earth, and it endures.
⁹¹ Your laws endure to this day,
    for all things serve you.

The challenge of faith, is to trust in God when the evidence being presented to you suggests that God is absent.  It certainly is proving so for me, AND YET, I believe that what God is doing is not discernible to the human  eye and spirit.  That does not  mean that God is not active.  When we lose confidence and faith we turn our eyes to the wrong place.  For me I find my comfort and my confidence in God’s Word.  This is truth that has been tested over the ages and God has never been found wanting.  THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!

 

I am back and acrostic prayer

Tags

God, Hurricane Sandy, prayer, Rebuilding

Good morning folks, I am back from my most marvelous vacation, and in time I will tell you about the spiritual insights I gained in all the activity of being entertained by the two boys, but first it seems to me that there are more important things to address.

While I was away, there were two earthquakes north of the Island that my mother lives on.  Fortunately they were based in the ocean, and there was no serious damage, but some of the small inner islands did have damage, and my heart goes out to those who have had to rebuild, or restore damage.  The whole region was in my prayers while I was gone.

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Eclipsing the news out of BC however was the distressing news about the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.  The after effects did some damage in the area of Ontario in which I live, power outages and loss of life.  That is the real tragedy of those kinds of storms.  When lives and homes are lost, the cost for the people is tremendous.

The past two days I have been catching up on television reports of the damage, and it is very disheartening to hear that people still have no access to power.  The strength and determination of the people who came out and voted in yesterdays Presidential Elections despite the lack of power or facilities was amazing.  People may have voted in tents, but they cared enough to come out and vote regardless.  The resilience of the human spirit is amazing, and reminds us that when we all roll up our sleeves we can rise above and overcome even the most difficult of circumstances.  May all who have suffered from Hurricane Sandy continue to demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit as they rebuild their lives.

For this reason, I feel it is very fitting that my first post-vacation blog topic needs to include a prayer for those whose lives have been devastated by the hurricane.

Holy God, holy and wise, holy and compassionate
Upon you rests our hope, and in you we place our trust
Restore we pray the lives of those who have suffered in the storm’s path
Revisit each one with your love, touch them with the healing power of your spirit, show them the places to find aid.
Invest your wisdom and your will in those who are able to bring aid, and start rebuilding in the hardest hit areas
Comfort those who mourn, and those who are homeless
Announce clearly the sources and places of aid, comfort and hope
Nurse the hearts and spirit’s of all those who are fearful and anxious.
Empower all with the hope and certainty that you are with them, even to the ends of the earth.

Speed the recovery process so that all people have a place to live before the storms of winter come
Amaze us all with what we, working with you, can accomplish
Nudge and encourage those of whose whose wills have been slow to bring aid
Depend on all of us to work together in harmony and strength
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow you are the same, help us to see how you have been working among your hurting people from day one and show us how you continue with them until all restoration is accomplished.

Amen.