Pastor’s Corner – Sunday, Dec 21
Dear Beloved,
Grace and peace to you in this third week of the Advent season when we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus anew! What has caught your attention so far this season? How are you preparing to welcome Jesus into your life for the first time or again or in new or different ways?
The word hope continues to resonate with me. When I asked the Treasure Seeker children what hope means to them on the first Sunday of Advent, one said hope is ideas. One said it is family and friends. I have been giving thanks for their insights. I am grateful for God’s gifts of hope made known in ideas - hopeful and helpful ideas that come to me directly and ideas that people share with me. How can we respond when hopeful ideas seem to escape us, when despair comes fast and furious trying to dash away hope? How can we be friends, family, members, and neighbors who reflect God’s hope even when we feel hopeless?
Here are some practices that help me. Maybe one or more of them would be helpful to you.
Be gentle with yourself. It is okay when we feel hopeless. All our emotions are okay. What we do with them matters. If we feel a hopelessness that is depression, we can reach out to a trusted person in our lives and/or professionals.
Rest. When I become fatigued, hopelessness comes more quickly. God offers us the gift of night for rest (or if you are a night worker - thank you - we pray you get rest during your sleep time). God offers us the gift of Sabbath.
Pray, read the Bible or a devotional book or site, or worship with others or individually with God.
Spend time in God’s creation or in the arts (sing, dance, draw, paint, sculpt) or in movement (play, breathe, stretch, walk)
Take five minutes to do something that brings you joy.
Thank God for whatever is good.
Remember people and organizations working for healing, wholeness, and positive changes.
May you feel and share God’s hope this season. May you always know you are a loved and loving child of God.
Sarah
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(Romans 15:13)
