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  • Thank You, 2020, for These Gifts

    Thank You, 2020, for These Gifts

    We’ve turned the calendar page on 2020. And like so many others, I bid it farewell with a good riddance. 2020 was HARD! It was like sandpaper on our souls. But before I lay 2020 to rest, I want to say thank you for the things you’ve given me. With gratitude, I’ve learned in new ways that…

    We are all connected. All over the world, in every corner, our destinies and health and well-being are interlaced. We have feared, hoped, and grieved as one.

    We need each other. It doesn’t matter where we work, who we are, what we own–we all are touched by the events of 2020. And we all need each other to choose what’s best. Even if we don’t know each other, our actions can help or hurt one another.

    We all matter. The grocery worker. The delivery person. The garbage collector. We are essential and we are dependent on one another.

    2020 has given us many gifts…

    The gift of heroism. What it means to be a hero. Those who show up day after day in the face of a pandemic.

    The gift of justice. To stand side by side in protest and demand a better way.

    The gift of agency. To brave elements and toxicity to vote–to make our voice matter.

    The gift of sacrifice. To make sacrifices for the good of others. To wear a mask. To stay home. To forego events.

    The gift of humility. To acknowledge there’s much I do not know. To trust our leaders. Our scientists. To cry out to God for healing and mercy and justice.

    The gift of compassion. For those who are afraid and vulnerable. For those who are sick and suffering. For those who are lonely. For the way this pandemic has broken all of us–all of us–in some way. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. Financially. Socially. Each of us is off kilter. And we have compassion for one another.

    The gift of wisdom. To see beyond the surface of who people are. For character to be revealed in our leaders–good or bad.

    The gift of clarity. To see what really matters.

    The gift of gratitude and appreciation. For small and great things. For miraculous vaccines and for staples from the store. For HOME!

    The gift of prayerfulness. To come to God regularly for the needs of others. Because He alone can mend what is broken.

    The gift of patience. My needs are not greater than others. We wait. We don’t push or demand.

    With gratitude: Farewell 2020, but thank you, by the grace of God, for the gifts you have given me in a year when so much was taken.

  • Nature Is Not Our Friend … Where Disease Comes From

    Nature Is Not Our Friend … Where Disease Comes From

    Why does God allow the coronavirus to exist, to spread, to kill? Fundamentally, there is a truth that lies at the root of the answer to that question: Nature is not our friend.

    NATURE…

    we 

    seek 

    solace

    in

    what

    stalks

    us

    now.

    There are natural consequences for a natural world that is NOT our friend.

    I wrote this once about my husband Mike’s death…

    Nature is a monster lying in wait. We marveled at nature’s beauty that day and tiptoed on its surface until it proved that it is wild and waiting to snatch the life from anyone who comes near. Its gaping jaw opened and swallowed my husband that day. 

    Nature is not our friend. Regardless of its beauty and wonder and the revelation of who God is in its very fiber, nature is writhing under the curse of humanity’s sin. 

    We stand in awe of something that is decaying. Jagged cliffs were once beautiful mountains that have suffered under the constant deluge of rainwater. Erosion is the shadow of the world that was to be. 

    And we do not understand that just as we are fallen and in need of grace, nature is fallen. It is brutal. It stalks the unwary.

    Animals attack. Boats capsize. Thorns pierce. Gravity hungrily drags people to their death. 

    We who are living in a broken world are called to be caretakers of a once-perfect environment that now cannot be approached with the naivety and ignorance we exhibited that fateful day.

    Nature is not our friend. The coronavirus is nature run amok.

    It is the unnatural crossing forbidden barriers. It is a dish eaten with consequences for all humanity. It is an enemy that oozed through a permeable wall. 

    And now it stalks the weak, the infirm, the aged. 

    Just as the weak, the infirm, the aged deer cannot keep up with the herd when an enemy attacks…the virus pounces on the edges of our society. 

    It is nature run amok. 

    Nature was forever cursed in the Garden of Eden.

    In Genesis, I read yesterday about when Cain killed Abel that the earth cried out. The perfect world that once was harmless and holy…cried out to its creator: “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”

    It is in Genesis that the enmity between humanity and nature progressed from transgression to transgression.

    Adam’s curse was “cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you…

    Until you return to the ground;

    Because from it you were taken; 

    For you are dust,

    And to dust you shall return.”

    We were once ONE with nature. But now we are cursed enemies. 

    It’s amazing to me that Eve is blamed for the curse. And well she should be. But Adam’s sin cost us the oneness with the earth. Cost us safety in the garden. Made the earth produce thorns, thistles, bacterias, viruses, poisons, enmity.

    And when Cain killed his brother, the curse deepened. 

    God asked, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you.”

    Creator, Reveal Your Secrets

    The only way out of this morass of death and disease and destruction is if God opens the secrets of nature to the minds of scientists. For a cure. For a vaccine. For a treatment.

    We broke nature with our sin.

    Nature is the thing that will fix us.

    God is the only one who can unlock the secrets.

    Open wide your doors of mercy, God. Open our scientists’ eyes so they can see.

  • Our God, We Are in Your Hands

    Our God, We Are in Your Hands

    Today is a day of prayer and fasting. A worldwide call to cry out to God for healing and protection: Our God, we are in your hands.

    Lord God, have mercy on us. Pour out Your care and protection and wisdom on our world. May we turn to You as never before as we realize how dependent we are on You.

    Lord God, would You open the eyes and minds of the scientists in the same way that You did for George Washington Carver? Would You reveal secrets that are hidden in Your creation? Would You speak to their minds and enlighten and enliven them? Would You strengthen them with stamina and courage and insight? Would You help them find treatments and cures as You have done for ages with other plagues?

    Our God, we are in Your hands.

    Lord God, would You speak to the world’s leaders? Would You give them wisdom and courage and foresight that they’ve never had before? Would You show them the way to go? Would You give them the character they need to lead in this time? Would You help them make the decisions they need to make?

    Our God, we are in Your hands.

    Lord God, would You be our provider, our sustainer, our all during this time? We face scarcity and it freaks us out. Would You help us turn to You instead of our online shopping or local grocery store for peace? Would You help us trust You for our daily bread?

    Our God, we are in Your hands.

    Lord God, would You heal what ails us in our broken world’s economy now that this virus has crippled it? At the same time, would You reveal to us that what we trusted in was never worthy of our trust?

    Our God, we are in Your hands.

    Lord God, would You help us see what matters most in these times? Would You fill our hearts with love for one another…for the least of these…for people we do not even know?

    Lord God, would You protect and comfort the lonely…the isolated…the fearful…the bored…those who are on the brink of a mental break? Would You sustain and uphold them?

    Lord God, would You connect us as never before in a time that we are distant? Would You awaken the church with faith and courage and wisdom? Would You help the church rise up and be a light at this time? Would You cultivate our longing for community? For worship? For what we took for granted only months before? 

    Would You watch over our children who are on the front lines? Would You protect them, heal them, guide them? Would You strengthen their immune systems? Would You, dear God, help them and our grandchildren to escape this pestilence unharmed? Lord God, would You bless them with long life and health and a relationship with You?

    Would You draw them to You? Would You help them see that they need You? Would You draw near to them in ways that they sense Your goodness and love and presence?

    Thank You, God, that You have built a hedge of protection around our youngest generation. You have given them amazing immune systems. In Your mercy, You are making the plague pass over the youngest of us. Thank You, God. Please continue to protect the children. Lord God, would You bless them with long life and good health?

    Our God, we are in Your hands.

    Lord God, our world is broken. Would You heal our world? Heal our hearts? Heal our hospital systems? 

    Would You help us rise up as a people across the world stronger, wiser, more resilient?

    Would You comfort those who are grieving the loss of precious loved ones? Would You be the God who draws near when we mourn? Would You be present with them when they awaken to the new reality of their loss?

    Would You strengthen the ones who must deal with all the death? Would You protect their health and help them see the light in all this darkness?

    Lord God, would You make a way in the wilderness? 

    Our God, we are in Your hands. 

    You alone can save.

    You alone can rescue.

    You alone, God. We cry out to You in desperation.

    Come, Holy Spirit! Bring healing in Your wings.