A Funny Picture

Good morning,

As I write this I have been in the mountains of Colorado for a week skiing and taking in: the beautiful sky, snow covered trees, mountain peaks off in the distance, a beautiful white church steeple with tree covered hills behind it as you leave the Walmart parking lot!

It is such a funny picture of a Walmart box store, nondescript with a big black tar parking lot as you are headed in the store for a new coffee pot and on the way out you see this darling white church with a steeple nestled at the base of the mountain which is covered in snow tipped trees and a blue sky that takes your breathe away! One building is for your bodily needs and the other is for your spiritual needs. I don’t feel anything really as I go in Walmart, yet when I see the mountain with the white steeple of the church I feel lift in my spirit!

I am in a book club out here and they picked the book, How to Pronounce Knife. You read about the aches and aspirations of Loa immigrants and refugee life. I found so many of the stories so real and you have empathy for the parents and the children trying to find their identity in a new place. Some of the stories have no hope. Some of the stories you see the children try to protect the parents feelings. Some stories I could see that without expressing love people are hopeless, treated and talked to badly with damaging words and worse then that, they are missing joy!

Love is a gift we receive as we place our lives in Christ. He gives us a new identity and our spirit is renewed and lifted! We are so loved and forgiven as He gives us his peace and joy. Now we have to come close to God to see what the life of a Christ follower really is. Lent is an annual invitation for Christian to slow down in order to catch up with God. To close our eyes so we can truly hear. To simplify our schedules so we can truly serve.

A lot of us started a six-week journey of fasting food or drink or whatever; that is meant to be an overwhelmingly positive experience. If we miss this fact, we will take on practices of self-denial that become ends in and of themselves, losing sight of the destination to which they are meant to point. This season is an invitation into the new life of Christ!

Love you, Teri