One word can mean many things.  What do you think of when you read layering?  My first thought is Craig Cox’s Coconut Layer Cake he posted on Facebook last night.  If you want to get layered up reach out to Craig for some home made goodness you won’t soon forget! 

Then there is layering that means you finally can get your hair cut.  No more chopped up ends you tried to fix.  You turn your hair back over to the professionals who layer, shape and reclaim your stylin’ life!

Layering can imply how to dress, how to have a conversation, or in todays  context, layering helps us describe life.  A short word full of heavy and broad implications.  I like those kind of words!  Say a little, mean a lot kind of words.  

Today layering is about coming to terms with the multiplicity of things we carry emotionally and spiritually. It’s important to call this to our attention – lest something sneak up on us.  Surprise!!!?*##!!!  Not if we can help it!  Forewarned is forearmed. So let’s peel back some layers together.  You can help by adding your own, saying “But what about?”, or “Hey, I almost forgot that part!”…

Corona Virus is in everyone’s face (masked or not).

Besides the illness itself, how to address it personally leads to fear, anxiety, and life changing decisions on how to respond.  You have to be honest about your own risks, health, etc..  The fallout can be in the  range from unwelcome dependence on others, isolation, job consequences…. you can take over here…

Additional outcomes could be tension at home due to quarantine; difficulty in working at home (a survey suggests that 42% of those working at home are now drinking every day on the job); children who need attention, education. Add  layers of families with job concerns, or no job, food shortages or scarcity; name what is coming out of your quarantine experience…

Additional parts of life include recent bad weather, tornados ripping through the South, lack of sleep, questions about how to return to community, family and life in safe and healthy ways.

These layers don’t make a luscious Coconut Cake you can’t wait to enjoy with a cup of coffee.  These layers are life. They have been there all along. It’s just that our personal, community and world layers have intensified, bringing with it a heavier sense of responsibility.  A deeper awareness of the import of Every. Single. Decision. 

I pray that in naming this concept, you are not held by it.  Identifying challenges and difficulties means they are not secret.  Ignoring won’t make them go away.  Naming them takes the power away from the wildly creative imaginings that we  develop in the middle of the night, in the dark, when everyone else is asleep.  Reality might stink, but it a far cry from our own worries out of hand.

The God news.  It’s good news.  You do not have to carry the layers of life by yourself.  You may have dismissed this because you already know, have named, have people you can talk to and prayers that calm and bring hope.  Great!  If not, the layers we live in today are of no surprise to God.  God is with us at every turn.  God will take the heavy burdens and carry them.

Lighten your load today.  Pray to Jesus Christ like you would to your best friend.  Tell him your frustrations, beat on His chest if you need to.  Cry out the injustice you are feeling and seeing.  And lay this at His Holy nail scarred feet. Or raise the pain and challenges of the day up, laying them one at a time into His arms that stretched wide of His own choice on the cross.  Pain meets pain and God will receive yours today. Always.

I love a good story.  Even better, I love a happy ending.  Tops is a happy, peaceful, joyful ending.  That is what God desires to give you.  Peace that passes all understanding.  May your story connect with the story of God’s love for you and willingness to accompany you in all things.  

That’s it. Except if you want some cake, Craig is taking orders.  Now you can have your cake and eat it too!

I love you, am praying for you and trusting in God to be with you in this time.

Pastor Lisa

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11: 28, 29

A picture that needs no words.  

Big Poppa is sad.  He spends his days looking for visitors. A low whine says, please take me down to the children I see playing with a ball.  

This picture went viral in one day for good reason.  This sweet puppy expresses our own discontent with “sheltering in”.  There are even some rolls around his waist that might have been earned in the last month due to lack of exercise.  Bless his little puppy heart, it is so hard to say no to such a forlorn, dejected picture of despair.  

We have other more descriptive words for this state of dejection:  depression, loneliness, a longing for what one can not have.  To a dog, the only thing he knows is that he can not do what he most enjoys.  Be social.  

Each of us has our own level of social needs.  When we find ourselves sitting in the sun with our head hung low, disinterested in all that is going on around us, its time to sit up and take notice.  Maybe someone near you will see you in this state, or you see someone else that hasn’t moved a muscle to engage in the normal things of life.  Like eating, showering, making a phone call… barking?  

We can all resonate with the picture, its just that we don’t want to live that picture.  It’s ok to say that I am sad.  It’s important that we do!  It’s healthy to stop and examine what is making you sad.  Some of it we can do nothing about.  Some of it is our inner workings of how we cope.  However when you start living on the porch with your back turned to life, its time to call for help. If there is someone in your life who is struggling with this “shelter in” time, tell them you are concerned. Listen and help them identify the challenges.  Encourage them to take small steps to re-enter life in positive ways.  Help someone along.

I am thinking that if I could get Big Poppa’s address, I would send him a surprise package from chewy.com.  I can just imagine his delight in ripping open a box, snuffling through the wrappings and finding a toy and a treat.  It doesn’t take much to make a dog happy!

Since we have hit our 40 day mark or more in this quarantine stuff, how about we do something for someone else today to bring delight, joy, surprise?  It doesn’t take much – any change in routine is a spirit lifter!  I bet you have already thought of someone who needs a lift.  Now, go and do what you can – it doesn’t have to be big.

That’s what it means to love.  Selflessly. Doing for others. I bet you will find that in the doing, your spirits are lifted up too.  The outcome is always more than you expect.    Big Poppa is waiting….

I love you, I am praying for you, God understands our ups and downs, and loves us still.

Pastor Lisa

P.S. even though its raining, the birds are singing!

“He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22: 37-39

One

“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do”.  Three Dog Night, 1968.  Good thing I checked my facts – I attributed the song to the Beatles and I remembered the words at the end wrong.  Some of my music friends are shaking their heads now…

One could be lonely, but one can still stand on its own! *weak pandemic humor 

One came on the heels of nothing, believing that it was the better placeholder for numeric communication.  Then two showed up!  I will stop there and get back to the point, which I am sure is to be found one day… 

Oh wait – that was it!  One day.  After reading a few missives of the morning, remembering some of the news and its dual focus of now and soon, and signing up for a webinar to get myself in order for the next “phase” of life: Re-opening the church, I got sorta tired. We have hardly begun to get a grip on this strange experience of functioning under pandemic life when we are now addressing how to come out of pandemic strictures to live again.  Just let me do one day at a time!

And let me add – we are all saying how we might have learned a thing or two about our “former” lives that we say should not be forgotten.  And we mean it too!  With all our heart.  

Can I just say that with all good intentions, how easy it is to let the wisdom be shouted out by the patterns and habits that are deeply ingrained in us?  I know with what I am speaking!  So, knowing me, I hope to do better with this “re-launch” of life together.  In family, in friends, in church, in community. 

This weekend, we had our grandson, Luke, with us.  One of his favorite activities (and there are many!) is to find something that was once his moms. The other day he found an old jewelry chest.  Small, silver turned grey, worn red velvet inside, holding 4 beautiful rocks.  Each stone, polished and unique.  Those stones began to travel in his fist.  We spent time examining them, admiring, looking at the color, shape and size.  Each was a treasure!  And then the inevitable.  One got lost.  We spent quite a bit of time looking, consoling and finally putting the three remaining rocks in a small velvet bag for safe keeping.  

We have so many treasures.  Memories, though faulty, experiences that shape us.  This uniquely singular world experience of pandemic has the potential to profoundly shape us.  Some will come more natural than others.  But what one thing have you learned about yourself, your life, your values that you really want to hold on to?

Before tomorrow becomes today, think on that one thing that holds meaning for you about this time.

Write that one thing down, on your heart. On your mind. On your soul.  Maybe put it in a silvered greyed jewelry box to have it later discovered, this treasure you found in these pandemic days.  That one thing important to you.

That is yours. To have and to hold, for all days to come. No matter the press, no matter the suggestions, adjustments, losses or gains, you have made meaning of all these crazy days, with one significant awareness.  

One more thing – even before you knew Him, Jesus Christ claimed you as his own.  You are the precious one that our Beloved came to live, die and was resurrected for.  The grace of God is always one step ahead of our own understandings.  That makes meaning for life in profound and humbling ways.  One day at a time, yes, one day. Today.  For You.

I love you, and am thankful for this day!  God loves you even more.

Pastor Lisa