The calm gives us time to plan ahead, like for our upcoming Valentine’s Day cookie social, and maybe a St. Patrick’s Day potato bar (more details to come!).

In the meantime, I invite you to treat these ordinary days as holy, too. There is a sacredness to the lives we live, to the work with which we support our families, to the people we care for, to the Sundays we gather with nothing particular to celebrate except God—which is quite enough reason to celebrate, after all. God even gives us the gift of leisure, of time to sit and simply enjoy the world that we have been given. Holidays, holy days, celebrations—they simply give us moments to remember what a gift life really is.

I’ll look forward to celebrating with you the part of life that is our life together, the part where we consciously take time to think about God and God’s love, to remember our source. See you in church—

Becky

Prayer

Today is new, oh God,

The light is gathering and spilling onto everything. The sleeping and the sleepy.

The trees brushing the window.

Even the unwashed dishes know it’s time.

What a gift.

Unopened.

Lord, you know the obstacle course ahead.

The intractability of most of my problems.

The irritations I will need to smile through.

The forgetfulness that will undo my best efforts. And the fights I will need to pick because someone really should.

But bring me back to this moment, God.

The gratitude that rises up within me

lifts my eyes and settles my soul.

Resurrection has happened again today—

you made the sun rise,

and brought love to the world already,

in the shape of a cross.

The hardest work is already done.

The work that remains is simply more of it: more love, more trust,

more faith in the unseen pleasure you take just gazing at us, sitting here.

We look ahead at a day that we can’t control but will be, somehow, already yours.[1]

[1] From The Lives We Actually Have, by Kate Bowler.