Living In God’s Amazing Grace
Blogs and Guest Writings
There’s a turning point in Mark’s gospel, in chapter 8 – “Who do people say that I am?” – because after months of following Jesus, the disciples still needed a short course to figure out who it was they were following. And so, we listen in because we are people who often need to be reminded just why Jesus is someone worth following.
Continue reading “Someone worth following”
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+
I’m reading a period novel right now about Revolutionary War times. 240 years ago in this country. Much of the focus of the novel is on the servants – the ones who get the work done, while the prominent family members do important things like go to parties, and rub elbows with powerful people. I wonder if anyone reads these books and identifies with the ‘gentry’? I know I don’t. But, in the romanticized world of these servants, it seems the worst thing that heppens to them is sleepin on a pallet in the kitchen. History’s perspective in my lifetime has pointed out the vulnerability of servants (and even more so for slaves) that reveals the extremes of abuse that a servant can experience at the hands of a master.
| synonyms: | saving, freeing from sin, absolution
“God’s redemption of his people”
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| synonyms: | retrieval, recovery, reclamation, repossession, return |
Redemption is such a churchy word – and one of those words that shut people down. The only other place I remember using the word Redemption is when my mother and I would redeem Green Stamps.
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. Continue reading “The problem of Ruth, chapter 3”