Stepping out in love and faith without fear, to make the world a better place!

Dear Family of Love,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful You Matter Monday! Did you tell any of our family members that they matter? I hope so! We don't treat anyone as insignificant beings! Everyone is precious to God and should be precious to us. I know this isn't an easy task but it is necessary for us to do when we want to be united as a family and to God. Love, courage, and faith are what is needed when begin to connect with God's world and each other. I keep seeing things in the news that make my skin crawl and rattle my nerves. Quite a bit of news pieces are hateful and hate filled and only are designed to make us less united than we already are. I cannot believe how these pieces harm, hurt, and abuse and degrade all of our emotions and self-esteem. When we post, tweet, or re-tweet any of these items which come from questionable source material we aren't any better than those who write these hurtful and salacious items. Tonight we need to be stepping out in love and faith without fear , to make  the world a better place. Stepping out in love means we are selective about what we read and share. If we are to be the loving, kind, and  generous Family of God we are called to be we must stop acting like Christians and  be one. Acting isn't the same as being. Being requires us to go deeper, go lovingly, go mercifully, go justly, go into the world as Jesus would. If you don't have a clue what that is go, back to Gospel 101. Jesus is seen in so many places with a diverse crowd of family members that aren't exactly clean cut characters who look like the missionaries who come to our doors on occasion. I use the present tense because Jesus is living and visits each one of us through the words and deeds of our family members, if we'd only look. The family members Jesus connects with are raw, emotional, unclean, suffer with demons of all kinds, are unsure about themselves , women, children, Roman Centurions, Tax Collectors, women who are victims of human trafficking, Eunuchs, Lepers, blind, disabled, Samaritans, the Woman with the Alabaster Jar, just to name a few and many. So dear family we are all of these from time to time even if we aren't on the list. Remember not everything was written down and placed in scripture. If it were, we couldn't lift the book or be able to read it without it troubling our backs and necks. So dear family are we going to step out  in love and faith without fear, to make the world a better place by boldly going where God and Jesus guide our foot steps? Please meditate on these things while you listen to some of my favorite new hymns.

The Call-Vaughn Williams

The Summons-John Bell

Gather us In

There's honey in the Rock -Nick Page

+++++++
Dear God:

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear, to make the world a better place.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to comfort and serve the least of these.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to become the peacemakers the world needs.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to lovingly respond to all who are grieving.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to take risks and serve you O, God in ways that are out of the box and unimaginable.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to comfort and sustain those who don not like us but need us as their soft places to fall.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to love our family members who are unloving, different, and have been estranged from us.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to be there when we would rather not be.

We pray  for all who are dying and who have died today.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to speak truth to power and be the voice for the voiceless.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to conserve all of our natural resources of  God's Cathedral of life.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to learn to lovingly include us who are learning to live authentically as we are and not as you would have us be.

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear to be ardent in respecting the dignity of all our family members human, animal, and plant. 

We pray that we may step out in love, and faith without fear  and lift up these our prayers to Jesus who modeled loving acceptance to us all. Amen.

++++++

Good Night Dear Family! Let us step out in love, and faith without fear as we approach Take Care Tuesday and Take care of ourselves, others, and care for God in the ways God has planned. I love you. Remember You Matter to God, To Each other, To me , and To Yourself.  I give thanks to God for you this day and always.

Love,

Sara