Our Savior’s and friends,
Grace and peace to you as we enter the Advent Season. There is something about Advent that brings a sense of peace and calm among the hustle and bustle that surrounds us. Here are a few suggestions to help bring more peace and calm and less hustle and bustle this season.
An opportunity to set aside time each day to write down three things you are grateful for. This is a great way to start the day or even a way to end your day!
Drown out the societal messages of “do this” and then “do that” by choosing to shut off the television, the radio, put down the newspaper for a set time at least one day a week. Enjoy the silence, and pick up your Bible and read the Good News instead!
Visit with someone you haven’t seen, talked to, or sent a letter/email to in a long time. If you do this once a week for four weeks, you will have reconnected with four people! There are always shut-ins on our church list who would LOVE a visit!
Enjoy the company of family and friends. Set up a time to invite friends over for a good ol’ fashion visit. Coffee and treats, dinner together or something simple like tea. Not at a restaurant, not out in public, but in your home!
Notice the little things this Advent Season. Take time, as we say in the summer, to “smell the roses,” but instead of roses, get out and smell the freshly fallen rain/snow, the scent of the pine trees. Notice the glimmer in the night stars, or the sun cresting the horizon on its way up or down each day. Get outside and breath in that fresh air of God’s great north woods!
Take each day one at a time. Do not worry about what tomorrow will bring, focus on today. Don’t get caught up in the busyness of to do lists, shopping lists and all that brings on chaos and noise to your life. One day at a time. Christmas will come whether we are ready or not so you might as well choose joy, choose love, choose hope, choose peace this Advent because that is what will ultimately bring you that sense of peace and calm this season!
May you have a blessed Advent!
Pastor Liz
Grace and peace to you friends!
I hope your summer has been going well for you! The weather has been a little wet, but we have also had some nice warm days, which I enjoy the most!
As we enter into our last month of “summer,” what do you most look forward too? Have you had enough summer company and you are looking forward to some rest? Perhaps your summer company is yet to come and you look forward to hosting. Fishing, camping, vacation, gardening, house/yard projects. It sure seems like we cram as much in as we can in the three short summer months we get to enjoy here in God’s great north woods!
Summer at our house has been full of travel! I was in Guatemala for two weeks in June. River was in Europe for 10 days in June. River and I went to the ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans in mid-July. Now we are shifting to getting River ready to move to college! A bittersweet moment for me!
Amid the busyness it is so important to find the time, make the time, and to stop and take a breath. Stop and breath in God, allow the Spirit to enter in and offer rest for our souls.
A favorite verse of mine comes from Matthew, where Jesus invites us to come to him, all that are weary and carrying heavy burdens and he will give us rest. YES! Rest! We don’t have to do this thing called life alone! We have God on our side. We have God who has promised they will share the yoke with us. God will come alongside us. I find this gospel to be of comfort and peace in times such as the middle of summer!
Thank you for showing up, friends! Thank you for coming together to “be” the body of Christ. Thank you for your love and support, your caring for one another and for your steadfast faith! I look forward to the routine of fall, the colors, and most of all seeing more faces in worship as folks make their way back to “town” from the lake! But for now, we have a few more weeks to enjoy summer!
May you find solace and peace as we enter into the last days of summer!
Peace to you~
Pastor Liz
Spring Greetings!
This in between time of seasons, both spiritually and in the cycle of mother earth, can be long, drawn out and difficult. I long for warmer days, sunshine and the song of the birds. I long for green grass under my feet, flowers in bloom and bees buzzing about. I long for the Word of God to soak into my heart and the voice of the Spirit to lead me along the way.
While we wait for green grass, the Word of God can provide wisdom and nourishment. While we wait for blooming flowers and singing birds, the Word of God can be music to our ears. However, sometimes even the Word of God can come seem like an in between time. Can seem like we are waiting to hear, and are open and listening, but nothing is there. We wonder where is God in our broken world, in our hurting lives, in our grief stricken environment. We wait on the Lord with patients and with love, with curiosity and with imagination.
This in between time of seasons, stands to remind us that even when we feel we can hear, see, taste, feel God, God hears, sees, feels and tastes us. God is with us and God is indeed leading us through this in between time. Things are happening, our faith is deepening and our curiosities are coming alive, we can trust that to be true!
What will your intentions for the month of May look like? Can you find time each day to dwell in the Word? Can you find time each day to pray for two or three people that you haven’t seen in church or around town lately? The power of prayer moves people and you can be a part of that movement. If you prayed each day for just two people by the end of May you would have witnessed and held in prayer 60 different people and who knows what kind of movement the Spirit would be empowered to do in their lives, in your life!! Try it!
Set your intentions for the month and might one intention include prayer and might another be happiness and kindness!
WHY I WAKE EARLY
By Mary Oliver
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light-
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
May happiness and kindness be yours to find, enjoy and dwell in this spring! Remember May 19th is Pentecost, wear red and plan to attend worship for fire in the font, the wind swirling around like the Spirit and the breath of the choir – singing come, come, come, holy spirit come!
See you around! Pastor Liz
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