Where were you 17 years ago today? On 9/11/2001, I was in Flagstaff watching the Today show with my husband, Gary Hoenshell. We were stunned to see footage of the crash into the Twin Towers – and then we went to work. Hard to imagine. My kids called me, or I called them to tell each other we were ok. I called my dad. My mother had died just a couple months before, and my father immediately said, “She could never have lived through this awful thing. It’s good she is already in heaven.” 
We are all different now, after every tragedy we encounter. So many tragedies. So much loss. So much change. I was ‘trolling’ I guess looking at a post on a clergy website and the clergy person posted their job as “Prisoner of Hope”. I wish that guy lived on my block to encourage me every single day. Friends, we, too , can be prisoners of Hope.
I live in hope, and the certainty that Christ died for me, allowing me to be freed from a life of trying to earn God’s favor. It’s a gift, directly to me, and to you. That Hope is where I find my solace, my food, and my inspiration. Be blessed, friends. Pastor Patricia+
My daughter texted me this week as she arrived at her Book Club. “We are sick of love stories where people know they are in love 3 seconds into the relationship” Yes, of course they are. Because life is not a Harlequin romance or a Hallmark Channel Love story. Why spend another minute of your life on drivel designed not to uplift our thoughts but rather to let us stay in that smushed zone, where our emotions are slip sliding all over the newly waxed floor of life! Ok, enough of that. 