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Carrying Our Burdens Together
Recently, I helped my best friend and family move to their new home. Trip after trip, we loaded vehicles, then drove two blocks to unload their multiplying possessions into their new home. Two blocks. Innumerable trips. Countless stairs. Also innumerable were expressions of “Thank You” and “We owe you” nearly every time I passed by with loaded arms. I would respond with a smile and reminder, “This is what family does!” Then, I’d snatch a cookie and grab another load. I understood. My posture is similar when others want to help me. I feel needy and a burden. Love means not…
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Markers of Hope
I love to light a candle most evenings as I turn down the covers on the day. The dance of the flame and the scent of the candle are magical to me. Sometimes I voice a few words in the quiet of my home, welcoming the invitation to release the day and rest in the moment. Please don’t think I sit in silence and meditate the night away in a state of zen. Sometimes music is blaring, dinner is cooking, or Netflix is streaming. But the candle seems to ground it all in some mysterious way. I sometimes light them…
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Small Things
There have been waves of really hard things recently for people dear to me. Grief and loss. Pain and betrayal. Poignant life transitions and bittersweet anniversaries. There have been waves of really hard things for global communities like Haiti and Afghanistan living with unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. I often feel incredibly small in comparison to the big hurts in our world, immobilized by the weight of it all. In God’s kindness, the Spirit reminds me in those moments what God can do with small things. A kid’s lunchable. A widow’s two coins. Zacchaeus. When I’m overwhelmed by the magnitude of…
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A Pastor’s Plea for Vaccination
“Our forecasting model shows we should expect to continue seeing increased admissions over the next six to eight weeks,” Royston said. “We receive calls daily from other cities, (including the Springfield area) and other states looking to transfer patients due to capacity issues. We have been unable to accept any of these transfers due to our hospital already being at capacity.” Jessica Royston, Regional Manager of Marketing and Communications, SSM Health, Jefferson City, Mo I am deeply grateful for the vaccine made free to everyone. I, my family, dear friends, and many church members have completed their vaccination process without…
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Road Runner: Thoughts on Bourdain
Last night, I saw the film, “Road Runner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain”. I was a big fan of Bourdain’s show, Parts Unknown, and enjoyed his best-selling book, “Kitchen Confidential.” Anthony invited the world to the table, believing you learn a lot about each other when you share a meal. I savored the conversation, community, and discomfort Bourdain cooked up for us each episode. Bourdain was a complex guy. He was loved, and he was hated. He was compassionate, and he was rude. He lived larged and yearned to be small. He craved the good, and he sought the bad.…
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What Strong People Do
How telling the satisfaction we derive from carrying all the bags in one load from car to kitchen. Crooks of arms branded by momentary blood loss. Screaming muscles hushed by the pride of a few extra steps and minutes saved. Saved from what? Who knows. That isn’t the point, dear friend. The point is strong people carry all the bags in one load. But maybe they don’t. Bags or burdens, our approach is the same. We’re weighed down with personal pain, work strain, family needs, relational brokenness, ailing bodies, and fear fatigue – trying to carry it all in one…
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In the Artisan’s Hands
If you are from Missouri, you are familiar with Silver Dollar City, an amusement park in the city of Branson. It was a regular summer destination for my family. Shows, rides, taffy, funnel cake, ginormous cinnamon rolls. Clearly the food is a favorite. I especially love the demonstrating craftsmen, mesmerizing onlookers as they carve wood, beat metal, pull taffy, and blow glass into delicate works of art right before your eyes. The glass blowing truly captivates me as I watch them hold the glass over the intense heat, twisting, turning, blowing, pulling, and pinching with their large metal tongs and…
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Grief and Gratitude
For the past 23 years of my life, Rev. Dr. Doyle Sager has been a constant -the last 21 as pastor, coworker, mentor, and friend. How easy it is to take for granted “the constants” in life. Health, time, people – all precious gifts often overlooked as everyday guarantees until absence reveals their true worth. Doyle died on January 22 from lung cancer. More importantly, he lived 69 Kingdom-building, wisdom-sharing, coffee-drinking, knowledge-seeking, baseball-cheering, people-loving, God-serving years. I will miss hearing his keys jingle in the lock of the door between our offices. I will miss seeing him walk by my…
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Losing Focus
Let me begin this post with a confession: Last week I could not remember my 2020 word for the year. No clue. On December 24, 2020, twelve months betrothed to this word, and for all the chocolate in the kingdom, I could not have told you my carefully-chosen, prayerfully-procured word for the year. I’ve been doing a word for the year rather than resolutions since 2014. It works much better for me to think big picture about the journey I want to walk in the year ahead. You can read about some of my past words here, here, here, and here. Normally, I…
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Where Did the Year Go
It has been months since I’ve written on this blog. So much has happened since April 2020, much I never would have imagined nor have wished for any of us. It is a reminder of the gift of not always knowing what is ahead of us. For most of us, to know it all at once would be too much but to live it one day at a time has its blessings. God knows this is the most we could manage. We walk one day or an hour at a time, looking back to God’s faithfulness in our lives and…