February Twenty-Twenty One

 

“God is always there, if you feel wounded. He kneels over the earth like a divine medic, and His love thaws the holy in us.” -Teresa of Avila 

“God does not give up on anyone, for God loved us from all eternity, God loves us now and God will always love us, all of us good and bad, forever and ever. [God’s] love will not let us go, for God’s love for us, all of us, good and bad, is unchanging, is unchangeable. Someone has said there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, for God loves me perfectly already. And wonderfully, there is nothing I can do to make God love me less." -Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness

“When we live with hope we do not get tangled up with concerns for how our wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, our prayers are not directed toward the gift but toward the One who gives it. Ultimately, it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things. . . . Hope is based on the premise that the other gives only what is good. Hope includes an openness by which you wait for the promise to come through, even though you never know when, where, or how this might happen…” - Henri Nouwen

“Watch not the bitter earth, but the starry sky….” -Andrew Greeley

(or snowy sky!) 

(when there are no in person school events because they are all online,

 make-your-own-winter-ball-2021) 

I cannot tell you 

how the light comes, 

but that it does. 

That it will. 

- Jan Richardson, “How The Light Comes”

I stumbled onto the following words this morning and thought they would encourage you as they did me. Opening the curtains in the morning once it is light, especially this time of year, often feels like a declaration of hope against the dark that I need everyday. These are words to rest as we remember we don’t have to have all the answers or how to make it all better. We just make a way for God’s light of day to shine on us and sustain us. -Tracey Cravy

“ When you open the curtains in the morning, do you have to make the sun shine into your room? No, you open the curtains and the sun shines in. That's what it's like with God's peace and the hope that He brings. It will flow into our hearts, if we let it. Are you worried? Are you anxious? Is anything troubling you today? Don't try to work it out all by yourself. Let God's peace flow in – like sunshine into a dark room.” -Sally Lloyd Jones