Blessed be your name!

"The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Job 1:21

I may not have tulips, but I have towering lilacs, gloriously in bloom, in the back yard! The minute I walk into the yard the smell is intoxicating; what a magnificent gift! In today's gospel, Jesus tells the disciples (and us)..."your grief will become joy." (John 16:20) It may have seemed mysterious to them, as it may to us. But, if we really think about it, we can see times our sorrow has turned to joy and our grief turned to rejoicing. We can look back and see situations that we never thought we could climb out of and still be joyful. But, with the grace of God, we have come through and our lives can carry on. We can dance again. Today, let's think of the times our loss of tulips has turned to the beauty of lilacs, and let's bless the name of the Lord! Love, heidi

Be the love...

"The gospel of grace calls out: Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Brennan Manning, "Reflections for Ragamuffins"

Brennan Manning goes on to state different situations...will this situation separate you from the love of God? Will that? Ultimately, the answer is that nothing can or will separate you from God's love. Period. End of discussion. In our experience, we may not always feel that love, but it is still there. We may feel it through another person. I was thinking about my oldest, who isn't much into God at this point on her journey. She feels love in her life but she doesn't really identify it as God's love. It is definitely love, though, and God is love. And nothing can separate her from God's love. Comforting, that. Today, let's look for the opportunities to share God's love with others. It may be the only experience of God they have today...and it may need to come through us. Love, heidi

Love even the Tulip-napper!

"This I command you: love one another."

John 15:17

I'm calling it the Great Tulip Heist of 2012. While I was away over the weekend, someone came and cut down every single one of my tulips! Most of them had already bloomed and I certainly had already received much joy from them, but it was such a shock to pull in the driveway and see nothing but green stems sitting there, naked. I reasoned that, perhaps, some kid had taken them to give Mom on Mother's Day. I could live with that. I need to reason this out because I just don't want to feel badly about people. I want to love people, as Jesus commands us, but when people do dumb stuff, even has insignificant as stealing tulips, it's much harder to love them. The command is to love all people, no matter what they do, and that is what Jesus modeled for us. We can only love the way Jesus loves if we first turn to him and welcome his love into our own hearts. Filled up with that, we can love anyone! Even someone guilty of Tulip-napping! Love, heidi