He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.
2 Timothy 2:8-9
Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.
Words of Grace For Today
People’s responses to God’s Grace can all too often be rejection and attack of the messengers.
God’s Word is not affected or restricted or limited or stopped. God’s Word permeates the universe like the strings that physicists theorize may make up the universe.
The Word, like subspace transmissions, travels faster than light, travels instantaneously everywhere.
Jesus Christ lives. Not even death can stop God!
God’s Word will where it wants, makes what it will.
We know, it wills not that we are enslaved, but that we remain free in God’s own good creation: free to choose to love instead of hate; free to choose to do righteousness for others instead of harm others striving for our own self realizations; free to choose to sacrifice ourselves in order that others may live, as Christ did for us; free to choose to live an abundant life, measured not by comfort, things, privilege or power, but measured by how many other people benefit from us reflecting God’s free, gracious, generous forgiveness, renewed life, and spirit (sometimes called chutzpah or gumption or nerve) to reflect the Light of Christ instead of our meagre attempts to shine.
The Word
travels instantaneously to where it is needed,
to strengthen the defences against the Devil and his evil perversions of good creation.
to heal our every ill
to renew life.
There is nothing else that is trustworthy other than God’s Word.
Bow to the One who Creates, Redeems, and Equips Us.
Psalm 92:2-3
It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
Romans 15:5-6
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Words of Grace For Today
Discord is easy to pursue.
It is very difficult to create harmony when and where so many people strive for their own great advantage, at other’s cost.
One could think that great advantage is won by years of practice:
If we were to give God thanks and sing God’s praise, declaring God’s steadfast love in the morning and God’s faithfulness by night, then perhaps we would know better how to live in harmony.
Not at all. Only the goodness of God, extended to us by the Holy Spirit, can enable us to do anything good, find any harmony, no matter how small or fleeting, or even sacrifice of ourselves so that others will know they live in God’s Grace.
Hold on to your hats, though, for what the Holy Spirit will bring us to, will be an adventure of our lives beyond all imagination.
Hang on to your hats, for the Holy Spirit will bring us to know joy, as we have never before.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Ephesians 5:17
So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Words of Grace For Today
The myriad of choices that we make each day, determine what choices come our way for the rest of our day, and years.
Sometimes this is remarkably clear.
If we choose to marry someone we have fallen in love with, with no regard for what kind of a person they are, there may be hell to pay, especially if they are not a kind person.
If, on the other hand, you choose to marry someone you have not fallen in love with, even if they are a kind person, you may certainly not be. For there are good motives to marry not for love, though there are many more evil motives.
Who you marry, or choose to live with, makes and breaks all sorts of future options. There is not much good in the greed, jealousy, and pride that drives one’s spouse to abuse you for all you’ve got to give.
If you choose to lie, cheat, and break others of hope in order to get ahead, no matter the cost to others, your choices will sooner than later be hemmed in by the record you make for yourself. With little to no good choices left you feel obliged to continue to find your own way toward a future that ruins all who it will touch.
Sometimes this is remarkably clear.
More often it simply is not clear at all. In those times as we attempt to move toward a future that offers life to some, if not many, or maybe just one’s own greedy self, we need some guidance.
That is all foolishness, for God keeps His eyes on all that we think, say and do.
You can also say God keeps Her eyes on all that we think, say and do. We cannot apply gender to God, though our speech limitations often lead us to do exactly that. The foolishness is to think our limitations determine God’s being! Blimey foolishness!
If we are so inspired by the Holy Spirit to be righteous beyond normal days, and we seek a choice in each fork in our roads, that will bring life to people, all people, even if it costs us in the process, then …
Then where does one turn to find such abnormal choices forward?
One can find all sorts of supposed wisdom, how to make life better for oneself and a few others. One can find all sorts of supposed wisdom, how to make oneself better.
That is all foolishness.
Where can one turn to find the purpose of life fulfilled in one’s choices, so that the Will of God through oneself, if it be so granted by God, will be pursued?
Where does one turn to find truth and real wisdom, instead of foolishness?
Where else can one turn, than to God? And where does one find God, other than in the story of Jesus?
This we trust, that the Holy Spirit will guide us, and we will not be led astray. We will not find ourselves doing what is illegal, nor what is plain stupid. We will not need to do what is foolish by any standard or meaning of the word, like blatantly flaunt a constitution that governs our ways and means.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
God help those who continue to walk down ways that are foolish.
God help us as we choose today what forks we will follow, God help us and those we love.
May they be all of God’s creatures, even our enemies.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Words of Grace For Today
People say that there is no reason to hope that … and then they go on to say what they have no hope for.
Everyday language would use the word ‘hope’ that way. But hope is really something much different.
It may help to put the word hope in a few wider contexts with comparisons to other words.
Pessimism is looking at all the evidence available and drawing a conclusion that gives the bad evidence more importance. So the glass is half empty and going down. The world is in the worst shape it’s ever been. Humans are the worst species and are quick capable of destroying the whole earth. That’s pessimism for you, always coming up with the trajectory straight into trouble and deeper.
Optimism is looking at all the evidence available and drawing a conclusion that gives the good evidence more importance. So the glass is half full and getting fuller. The world is in the best shape it’s ever been. Humans are the best species with the greatest chance of saving planet earth. That’s optimism for you, always coming up with the trajectory straight into a wonderful world and beyond.
Realism what people use to say their view of optimism and pessimism is right, not skewed like the other views.
Hope looks at all the evidence available, finds none that indicates God’s will is being done, and yet with no evidence to support this belief, lays everything on the line, trusting that God’s will is being done, God’s will is what we are supposed to be cooperating with, and in the end God will provide all that we need, even if that means all we get is a room prepared for us in the city of light, in life eternal.
Hope beyond hope is just hyperbole. Properly said one might mean: hope beyond all evidence, which is hope in it self anyway.
If we need to remember how great hope can be, remember Noah building the ark and ridiculed by all around … until the water starts pouring down, and keeps pouring down.
We may face challenges, on top of Covid 19, someone we most trusted has broken that trust by doing something blatantly illegal; of cancer has returned; or your lies in court have been noticed by the police; or your cheating on your taxes is being investigated, or (fill in your favourite sin) has been noticed by someone close to us and we have gravely disappointed them, or … the kids are just getting on your nerves too much … or the idiots are running their unlicensed motorcycles and quads all over the place, set off fireworks every night, and party until 3 and 4 in the morning so that it’s terrific when it storms at night to shut it down.
Pessimists would say: it’s just going to get worse.
Optimists would say: it’s just people blowing off steam. It will get better soon.
The person of Hope would say: God’s creation will withstand also these assaults on good sensibilities, and God provide all enough sleep, despite the neighbours late hours.
Perhaps Noah would like to take the fireworks, motorcycles and quads, and the party-ers on the ark for a little ride … somewhere far away. But that’s just hope beyond hope.
Perhaps God has other plans?
Perhaps there is hope yet, that some sense, respect and common decency will enter into these people’s lives …
or more likely I will gain an understanding of how helpful and beneficial all these late hour activities are for other people, so I will smile, instead of grimace, at their occurrences, waking me from my sleep.
There’s always hope.
Here’s hoping.
I Hope.
.
Faith is beyond hope. It is a gift of trusting when there is no reason to trust, or to hope.
Faith is a gift that the Holy Spirit continually renews in us, since we wear it thin so quickly.
Faith is the most powerful thing we will ever know in our lives.
Love comes in almost tied with Faith.
Some have said Love comes in first.
Regardless, there are these three: Faith, Hope and Love.
Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.
Colossians 1:12
Give thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
Words of Grace For Today
The Movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” portrays a hero who can with compassion, listening and friendship transform us from angry, cynical realists who doubt anyone is or can be really good, into kind, compassionate, loving spouses and fathers (or mothers, not to leave anyone out.)
The movie’s byline is We Could All Use a Little Kindness. Today’s polarized political worlds, the echo chamber of self absorbed opinions available on line, and the falsehoods presented as truths by those we previously would have respected, leave us needing kindness, compassion, and a renewed hope in humanity. We need a few new heroes to inspire us to be better people, especially with those people who are different than us.
We need a bit of truth to prevail, and decency: Hope Lutheran Edmonton’s council just voted and distributed material to the members: They know it is against their constitution, but they have, without proper process to leave the ELCIC voted to hold a mail-in vote to call a non-ELCIC pastor. It is blatant breach of trust.
The Bishop or the Bishop’s representation must be present at the meeting for it to be legal.
But if the council will vote to act against the constitution, and blatantly so, who can trust that any of the rest of the process will be anything close to fair or even decent.
That, and many stories like it, leave us knowing we need a LOT more kindness, compassion, and a renewed hope in humanity. We need a few new heroes to inspire us to be better people, especially with those people who are different than us. We need a few good people, a new kind of hero, to stand up to blatant evil and put it in it’s place.
There is nothing to support this hope, or to fill this need.
Instead we worship the Lord with gladness and come into his presence with singing. We give thanks to the Father, who has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
For no matter what or who assaults us in this life, we know who transforms us from wretched sinners into saints, who can only share God’s sacrificial Grace with all people, even those who exercise such blatant, and raw evil against the little ones of Christ.
We know that our very breath relies not on the goodness of other sinners. Neither does the terribleness of others’ sins take our breath, our spirit, our faith, our gratitude, our love for all people, nor our hope from us. For nothing can separate us from the love of God, and the love of God is what gives us life, no matter what else we face.
Thanks be to God.
Covid 19, you have got nothing on the sin and hurt that people are capable of causing others. We are thankful for all the people who are kinder, more compassionate, and more loving, having grown through the challenges of Covid 19.
Stay safe, for yourself, but even more so for those around you! We are in this together, this entire journey on the good creation earth.
but more nourishing than greed, pride, and bearing false witness,
and other ways we forsake our God.
Jeremiah 2:17
Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way?
John 8:31
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples.
Words of Grace For Today
God does not forsake us, ever, no matter what.
The Holy Spirit always leads us onward to serve Christ, and Christ alone.
It is not that the Holy Spirit leads us onward to serve our vision of the future, say what our own congregation should look like, or how much money we will save by cheating others, or how much comfort is due us at others expense, or even seemingly good goals: like that we will build family camps to nurture the faith at home, or that we will bring Vacation Bible Schools to remote areas in the North, so that First Nations people will be educated in the Christian Faith (as patronizing as that has always been!), or that we will recruit more and more people to join our church so that we are strong again.
The Holy Spirit always leads us onward to serve Christ, and Christ alone.
Discerning what Christ’s will for us is seemingly difficult, which we get so wrong over and over again. Only hindsight shows us how wrong we’ve too often been: take slavery, or exclusion of others by race, or nationality, or social class; or sexual orientation; or now on gender identification.
The ways we forsake God and go our own way seems to be unlimited.
The ways that the Holy Spirit uses to bring us home again, are actually unlimited, as unlimited as God’s Love and Jesus’ Grace.
Continuing in Jesus’ Way cannot be reduced to a few or even many sayings, rules, or verses. Democracy is not about a constitution, but rather democracy is about an attitude that toleration of others and their opposing ideas is essential to life and therefore to governing a people.
Being Jesus’ disciples is not reducible, not at all, to a set of rules, sayings or a constitution. It is a full experience of God leading us in ways and in places, toward ends that we cannot imagine, nor as we are underway, even fathom. It is about holding Jesus’ story of bringing Grace to all people at great cost to himself (his own life) as the guide to how we live. Following Jesus’ Way is about living out an ever evolving ethics that holds us humbly needing Grace, and bearing our own crosses, while not dumping the cross on others.
When we have nothing left to lose, then we are totally free.
We lose everything to follow Jesus, including the right to claim our right to live. Everything is the Holy Spirit’s to use. We are bold to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, for though it cost us our lives on earth, no one can separate us from the Grace of Jesus, the Love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.
What freedom that is! What security! What everlasting hope that provides!
Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
2 Corinthians 4:14
We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence.
Words of Grace For Today
The images for resurrection abound. Glorious, wonderful, hopeful.
The south wind blows hot air as I write this, warming it up into the high 30⁰. Not that comfortable.
Deception and lies abound all around, making lots of people hot under the collars. Not that comfortable.
Rule of law is lost as police brutality takes centre stage, with peaceful protests in response that are hijacked into violent riots in the heat of the nights for weeks. Not that comfortable.
Patterns of RCMP here at home, blatant in statistics, are racially focused and motivated by hatred spawned from irrational fears. Real crime is ignored, or abided, in a subtle agreement that it must exist, or it is attacked as if it were already war … and truth is the first victim in war. Society decay receives the heat of corruption applied, speeding it’s crumbling beneath a veneer of nice politeness. Not that comfortable at all.
In every generation the creative progress has always moved only along with the corruption of evil that permeates human efforts, so that eventually all (seemly) good things rot away.
The dead bodies of all human ‘achievements’ litter history and all creation.
In this dust, we each come to rest, at the end of our lives.
.
..
…
The promise made evident with Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is that God does not abandon us to this dust, not after we die, nor as we live.
From this dust God will bring us back to new life, raised with Jesus Christ, to live in God’s presence.
It is a promise in which we place our trust and hope.
Hope pulls us up and out of the dust that surrounds us each day. We live differently, better, at peace, simply because we have this hope. We no longer need to struggle to be good, God makes us saints in spite of ourselves. We no longer need to struggle to make things happen, and in the process become the evil that we try to conquer, trying to do in secret what is certainly wrong, destructive, and futile.
Hope makes all the difference in how we live. We surrender to serve Christ and Christ alone, no longer making our own goals the purpose of life, at all costs.
Even today the Holy Spirit guides us to live this life. This life is as Christ provides: that we accept our own sinfulness, his forgiveness, and the renewed life that the Holy Spirit gives us – then we turn to other sinners and forgive them, helping them turn from the evil that consumes them.
God help us. Raise us from this dust that catches in our throats as we try to breathe. Give us Light, Breath, and Hope … by Grace alone.
Only the Holy Spirit can show us how love blesses everything and everyone.
Psalm 8:6
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet
Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Words of Grace For Today
God gave humans dominion over the works of God’s hands, over creation, putting all things under our feet.
It is true that we, humans, do appear to be able to work our will over many aspects and creatures in creation. Certainly we do not have dominion over everything in the universe.
Since we pretty much destroy so much of what we attempt to control, perverting even our own good intentions into things terrible beyond imagining (remember how nuclear bombs, declining faithfulness, and pastor shortages came to be), it is probably good we have not mastered the entire universe.
Where we show most fearfully our successes is in our efforts to control and/or destroy other people. Warfare has developed to the point where we can all too easily dispatch a drone to blow up a village, missiles from a plane, ship, submarine, or land based silo that can obliterate whole cities, or suicide bombers to blow up a crowd. Terrorist attacks come by land, sea, air, and cyber means delivering projectile, poisons, explosions. Infamous leaders turn words that have no bearing in reality into deadly weapons, inspiring hate crimes, that invite protests, that are hijacked as violent riots, which in turn are use as excuses for more hate crimes inspired by infamously dangerous and irrational power hungry leaders.
Where did all this hate come from?
From our fearful hearts!
We fear that our share of the pie is disappearing, so we want to blame someone else, instead of take our own responsibility for living lives that demand others destroy air, land, and sea … and people, in order to satisfy our insatiable appetites for things that do not satisfy the soul.
How different Jesus’ life story is, filled with healing words and touches, wise words that reach the soul with truth, actions that demonstrate God’s omi-present, all-powerful, self-sacrificial love.
Be imitators …
not of those who pursue dominion over creation and creatures, especially other people.
Be imitators …
of Jesus, extending love, especially to the strangers, to the ones who is different, to the ones who cannot return our love, to the most vulnerable, to the most needy and to our own selves.
You can tell, in a congregation, who the people are who do not love themselves as God loves them. They always worry and try to make something (usually something impossible) happen according to their own plans. They lie. They cheat. The sow chaos, trying to keep their plans in the dark until the destruction is beyond repair, as if they somehow win with their lies, secrets, and interpretations of constitutions, bylaws, and contracts that are only possible if one suspends normal manners of thinking. While they demand more and more of others, they produce less and less real, loving work. What appears as loving actions is really power games to gain influence in order to rise out of their own chaos as a saviour.
Unfortunately people always follow leaders who create chaos and false fears, like Hottelstedter, who will then say they really had no idea where all the people disappeared to, those the cattle cars carried through their village… on the way to the extermination camps.
One has to pity those who are so fearful that the best they can imagine for the future is to create chaos and false fears to drive people to do irrational and destructive things. Yes! the pitiful have exercised dominion, the kind of dominion the Devil tempts us to, the kind that eats out our own souls and corrupts each piece of creation it touches.
Thank God, Jesus’ love, which the Holy Spirit equips and empowers us to imitate and act out for all people, even the most pitifully corrupt, cannot be overpowered by the Devil and his evil work, no matter the guise they come in. We are not separated from the love of Christ, not even by the Devil himself, not as God’s love flows into us in overwhelming measures, nor as it flows over, around, and through us to everyone around us.
Thanks be to God.
Therefore we pause at all hours, to be astounded with gratitude for all God has done for us.
Therefore we pray each day: may we not forget the over-abundance of God’s Grace and Love which saves us, even from ourselves.
Therefore each day we pray: may this day bring us to share God’s love with those so thirsting and hungry that they succumb to the Devil’s empty promises.
Yes, let us have dominion over all creation, as we imitate Christ, for Jesus’ kind of dominion is to pour God’s unconditional, irrationally prodigal Love and Grace into life around us … at all costs to ourselves.
I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
Words of Grace For Today
Compassion and supplication,
to look and mourn, to mourn as for an only child.
What profound grief … to mourn the loss of a loved one,
a child no less, and
an only child.
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..
…
When we are caught in deep emotion, especially deep sadness, despair or grief, we do not function well.
And it is good to hear again and again that at these times
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be there with us, interceding for us, helping us to ask for what we really need.
Even the Holy Spirit is caught by our sadness, despair and grief. The Spirit sighs so deeply words cannot express the Spirit’s empathy for us.
No matter what, there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God. When we do not remember this, the Holy Spirit carries us until we can remember.
Thanks be to God, for into the darkest days of our lives the Light of Christ shines.
But you, O Lord, know me; You see me and test me—my heart is with you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.
John 15:9
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.
Words of Grace For Today
We all have enemies. You may call them adversaries.
Maybe you’ve lived so as to win every conflicted encounter and you’ve left destroyed people in your wake as you’ve moved forward, progressing, you’ve called it, in you life … accumulating power, and/or wealth, and/or fame … and you’ve done this not so outrageously that people have stood against you with all their might, so that in your bubble of life you may not be aware of all your enemies. But you have earned your enemies by being against many people. Whether they count you as their enemy or themselves as your enemy depends.
Maybe you’ve lived like that and accumulated great power, wealth and/or fame and many people would tear you apart if they could, because you have destroyed so many people along the way to your ‘top’, which is really the bottom of a pit of … what to call it other than evil. They know you are their enemy, and whether they are your enemy depends.
Maybe you’ve lived just struggling to get by and you’ve not had the wherewithal to notice who stood against you or how. It was simply always something that took everything from you and gave so little back: an employer who took advantage of you and underpaid you for years, a colleague or boss up the ladder who took all the credit for your work and left you in the dregs, or ….
Maybe you did yourself in with self destructive choices. Or your ill-health took the focus of your life away. Or someone else, a friend or person of trust gaslit you until you thought you were the problem. Or maybe you just never had a chance to be anything the world values.
Maybe you’ve lived as I did, always taking it on the cheek, turning aside from destructive people and allowing them to have their way, just trying to ‘duck’ so as not to be caught so much by them.
Just maybe there are a few people, who like me, while ducking from the blasts of evil, we’ve done our best to provide for ourselves and our families AND we’ve sought to give as generously as possible our time, skills, compassion, kindness, wisdom, and/or resources to anyone who crossed our paths. We work to sow truth and peace wherever we are. Perhaps you started out as a pacifist, or ended up that way simply out of practice being at peace with all you were allowed to be or as God blesses you to be.
As sure as the rise of the sun is in the east, and the setting in the west, our enemies gaslighting us and their evil behaviours toward us, do not define us.
Their gaslighting, lies, and working in the shadows define them, each of them, no matter their position, power or wealth. They are defined as corrupt. They become a poison to the world around them. Things that could have been good decay from the inside. Their worlds rot like ant eaten tress under the pressure of the sins, and their turning from God to serve the Evil One. When the wind of even a small storm blows, they fall, shattering as they hit the ground. So much that could have been … is lost.
As the Psalmist writes: But you, O Lord, know me; You see me and test me—my heart is with you.
Then comes what seems like the good part (though it is not)
Biblical Rache, revenge.
Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.
Revenge is hardly where I go with that at all. I do have to bind the sins of all those who contributed to the gaslighting, the lying, and the work in the shadows to do what cannot survive in the light of day. I’m not bothered to keep track of who did exactly what; God will deal with them. I will not prejudge them as ‘sheep to be slaughtered’ even if I am sure they have earned that. I will give them time for the amendment of their lives, time to set right what they have done.
Why not ask God to set them apart for the day of slaughter? Because we all rely solely on the Grace of God to breathe, live and hope. Maybe God will be gracious and forgive these people and doers of evil deeds. I cannot know. I move on, not forgetting, working to stop this kind of injustice, but re-engaging in God’s good creation that I still have time to enjoy.
So all that evil bears down on each day, not countered by a wish to do in one’s enemies, and still life is blessed. Even my life is blessed, relegated as the old hermit in the woods living on $40/month. My life is blessed, not because it is easy or comfortable or secure.
My life is blessed because it is as God chooses, and as I trust God makes it.
My life is beautiful, wonderful, and it is ‘cool!’
I encounter it in the oddest ways at the most unexpected times. God breaks in on my life, wonderfully so. So I wrote a few days ago as I settle in for the night:
It is cool.
It is cool, 7⁰C out, and 17⁰C in
It is cool, A fire laid for the morning.
It is cool, Hot water on demand and washcloths and towels aplenty to clean up well.
It is cool, How I’ve been able to clean up and distance long grass and buggies from here.
It is cool, How after pressing so hard for days my body just insists and gets a nap and takes 3 hours.
It is cool, The view as the sun has set. It is cool how the process and checklist for restarting worship in person are coming along.
It is cool, The fresh air here.
It is cool The connected-to-the-saints solitude here.
It is cool, To have hard physical work and challenging creative writing to do.
It is cool, The song birds and water fowl fill the air at times with music and noise.
It is cool, The technology that makes so much possible.
It is cool. The Peace that carries us in the face of enemies onslaughts.
It is cool. It is God, 3in1, all
Breaking always in
to our finite bubbles.
Cool.
May God break into your awareness this day and fill you with awe, wonder and peace, as you abide in God’s love.
