by Lucinda Smith photo by Annie Spratt
Exotic and vibrant colours, tall and dangly, flinging themselves over the edge of the vase, weighed down by their glorious heads. I love Dahlias – I’ve just discovered them. Hadn’t really known about them before, and I had certainly never planted any, but this year I had a go–resulting in a glorious chaotic jumble of flowers and leaves and long stems, all tripping and falling over one another! But what joy! Every time I open the front door, I can’t help but smile and a sense of gratitude arises within me for this stunning display of glory and wonder, for the transformation of seed to flower, for the sense of summer that they bring to my little patch, even when the sun is not shining.
An article in the magazine Psychology Today states this, “Whether you choose to write a few sentences in a gratitude journal or simply take a moment to silently acknowledge all that you have, giving thanks can transform your life.”
A couple of thousand years ago, St. Paul, follower of Jesus, writing to the church in Thessalonica encouraged them to, ‘Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’ (1 Thess 5:16-18, emphasis mine).
When we have so much – more than enough daily bread, comfortable homes and clothing, pensions and healthcare, church community, good coffee and Dahlias, why do we find it so hard to be grateful? Is it that we have grown complacent and take it all for granted? Even assuming, perhaps, that we have a right to live as we do, forgetting that every good gift comes to us from the hand of God (James 1:17). When Paul wrote to those brothers and sisters in the first century, he was not addressing people who had access to doctors, to a plethora of material goods, or to overloaded supermarket aisles. He was speaking to men and women who lived without electricity or running water, who ate the same meals day in and day out!
I believe that a sense of real gratitude for the material and physical aspects of our lives is certainly a big step towards true contentment. However, dig a little deeper and we unearth longings and strivings, a restlessness and an unease in our souls that is more profound and less easily placated. When we think on what might have been, on our regrettable choices and those dreams still unfulfilled, that’s when true contentment still eludes many of us.
To experience contentment in spite of these stirrings, is to understand the nature of God. This peace springs from knowing who He has been for us, who He is for us today and who He will be for us in the years to come. Our confidence in the consistent, unswerving, faithful and good character of God must elicit from us a level of gratitude that in turn produces the peace spoken of by Jesus and also described by Paul as that which passes human understanding and reasoning.
This, surely, is contentment, with or without answered prayer. Its confession is the goodness of God defined by who He is and not by our feelings or the circumstances of our lives. Its expression is born of an unshakeable faith in God who is for us and not against us, ever. Gratitude for His willingness to keep us and sustain us and hold us in the hardest of times. Gratitude in the mystery of not knowing and not understanding the whys and the whats that life throws at us. Gratitude that God is who He says He is, and that we are who He says we are – nothing more, nothing less. Full stop.
Join Christine and Lilly TODAY for the next session of Facebook Live on Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
Advent is just around the corner, and many of us are busy already preparing for the season. We wanted to gather some of our resources together in one place–when planning and searching up ideas, it’s nice to have a reference sheet and to know what is timely. For example, you may want to note on your calendar the upcoming virtual retreat Walking in Wonder Through Advent! It is sure to be a refreshing fun time getting into the wonder of the season. Of course, if you aren’t able to attend on November 20th, you can still sign up for the retreat and access it later at your convenience.
Walking in Wonder Advent retreat
There are some new items for 2021 as well as updated ones, but also several lovely past assets and ideas that may spark some wonder and contemplation for you this season. Many of our Advent resources can be found in the shop and on Godspace, but here are some ideas we wanted to highlight!
If you are looking for something fun and festive, our Advent in A Jar free download has activities and ideas to help you celebrate individually, corporately, or with your family. Check out this particular Meditation Monday if you’d like to see one in action, or click here to download. Another fun (and free!) activity for the season can be found in the downloadable Colour Your Way Through Advent and Christmas. To enrich this activity, you might pair it with A Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel from Advent to Lent, as the coloring activities were created to enhance the devotional (which is currently conveniently available on Amazon). Perhaps you are hoping to connect to the anticipation, the waiting of the Advent season, and would like something contemplative as well to go with a devotional. You might try this free download of a collection of poems by Jeannie Kendall, Waiting.
Bundle: Lean Towards The Light This Advent and Christmas
Speaking of devotionals, we are SO pleased to announce that we have a brand new journal for our most recent Advent and Christmas devotional, Lean Towards the Light This Advent & Christmas! To celebrate, we have put together several lovely bundles for savings and ease. You might like to purchase the journal and devotional bundled together, or both books bundled with Advent Prayer Cards. A set like this also makes a nice gift! All of these bundles (and the individual products) are available as downloads if you’d prefer an electronic copy. Additionally, we are presenting Lean Toward the Light in retreat form, available for you to work through at your own pace over 90 days. Enjoy a time of rest and contemplation in a visual yet interactive format.
Advent Prayer Cards can be purchased as a standalone resource, as a download, or in a set of three! Beautiful art and designs adorn 12 cards which include Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany prayers to delight and invite reflection across the season. We also offer card bundles with two other Advent devotionals. Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional is available bundled with cards in our store, as well as bundled with the devotional mentioned earlier, A Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel From Advent to Lent.
If you are keen to get started with your planning and preparation today and are looking for some inspiration, try visiting our Advent, Christmas, New Year, and Epiphany Resource page. In addition to the supports listed above, there are many other posts and pages that will help you to create your roadmap ahead of the busy season and set your heart with intention. We wish you blessings this season!
Join Christine and Lilly TOMORROW for the next session of Facebook Live on Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
by Diane Woodrow, originally published on Aspirational Adventures
I’ve been having a quiet rant to God on behalf of a friend. I’m not sure if she’s ranting too but I am. Last week her youngest daughter gave birth to her first child in her early 40’s after years of trying; miscarriages, IVF, etc. But then at the start of this week my friend’s dad died suddenly. It isn’t fair, I am shouting into the heavens. Why can’t her and her family enjoy the awesomeness of this miracle baby just for a few months without having to deal with grief? Why???
The season in GodspaceLight is gratitude, and I know I’ve also written about gratitude on here in various guises, but my thought for today is “how can I/we be genuinely grateful when life is being unfair? “
But then as I walked the dog in the park this morning I experience the second awesome sunrise of this week and also had a heron fly from the pond almost directly in front of me. It got me thinking – I only get to see the sunrises on my dog walks now because the days are getting shorter, daylight hours are getting less. And I can marvel at how there are amazing colours in the sky for a good 20-30 mins before the sun rises officially. Even if I get up in the summer really early the sun doesn’t do that same thing of filling the sky with colour and light earlier than it pops its head up. If it wasn’t for that shortening of daylight hours I wouldn’t get to see this. So a place to be grateful when the dark is getting more?
Also what I felt when all this was going on around me is that yes life isn’t fair but there are good things going on in the unfairness. It reminds me of the fact that the trip to Paris to launch my daughter into university was marred because my father-in-law died that same weekend, so when I look at the picture of her grinning over a very very frothy cappuccino I think of his death too. Life throwing one of its unfair curveballs.
So all I can say about how to be grateful when life is being unfair is to accept and grieve in the unfair bits, the death bits, the darkness, but also be grateful in the sunrises, the births, the trips to Paris.
Both are allowed. Both are ok. It is not ‘either or’ but ‘both and’.
A few years ago I supported another friend though the first year after her husband’s suicide and we cried lots but we also laughed lots. We were able to be ‘both and’. Even now when we meet we do both – laughing and crying – more often than not in a public place
So I will hug my friend as she grieves and laugh with her as she delights in her new granddaughter. Together we can accept that life isn’t fair and that there are sunrises and there are sunsets. Some things are beautiful and some things are tragic. That we do not live in a world where only good happens and somethings we have to deal with both things at once. But we can do it!
And for that whole humanness of who we are I will be grateful
Bundle and save on our updated and new resources for Lean Toward the Light This Advent & Christmas! Choose from several bundle versions, conveniently available either to ship to you or download.
God sees us not as problems to be solved or broken objects to be repaired but beauty on the way to being formed. Sin, then, is what keeps us in a posture of resisting God’s desire for creating beauty in, with, and through us. His desire is for us to join him in creating and adding to the beauty we are becoming, which transforms the world around us into much the shame. (The Soul of Desire, Curt Thompson 43)
The Soul of Desire
The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson is the most impactful book that I have read for a long time and this week my devotional times and reflections revolved around my daily readings from it. Can you imagine what a difference it would make in our lives if we saw ourselves not as problems to be solved or broken objects to be repaired but as beauty on the way to being formed? And not just any random kind of beauty either, or the false beauty that Hollywood and social media tell us we should try to create, but the beauty of the glorious divine image which is slowly being recreated in each of us. We cannot see what that beautiful picture will look like when it is complete, but God often reveals the next step, the next brushstroke, the next tiny facet of beauty in that image. That is such a revolutionary and wonderful thought.
Each day, in fact in each moment, God is creating beauty. I am very grateful for the beauty God has already created in me. I am grateful for the beauty God is creating in me, around me and through me. I am grateful for the broken places that create beauty through their mending. I am grateful that this image of God within me is only one tiny facet of who God is. The full beauty of God is only revealed as all God’s creatures are restored together . Then we will not just see the beauty of God but the beauty of the eternal world God is giving birth to.
Curt Thompson asks his clients who are often struggling with their own inner demons or with relational breakdowns, “What is the next beautiful thing you want to create?” Instead I found myself asking two related questions that I heartily encourage you to ask yourself:
What are some of the beautiful things God has already created in me? We so often focus on what still needs to be repaired and made beautiful and fail to notice the beauty that already emerged from deep within us. I am aware this week that God has gifted me with a heart of generosity and hospitality; a gift for writing; a delight in nature and the joy of preserving and restoring it where possible; a desire for a more sustainable way of life for us and for others. Identifying these small gifts of beauty already present within me makes it much easier to think about what beauty might still need to be created from the broken places still within.
What is the next beautiful thing God wants to create in me? This is a great question to ask in the midst of hard transitions because it endues a sense of purpose and positivity to the transitions. God’s desire for the future is beauty, not ugliness and destruction.
Asking about the beauty God might want to create sounds simple–but of course it isn’t. We must recognize that God’s beauty is indeed created. It doesn’t come ready-packaged and fast delivered from Amazon. We – like God in the creation of Adam – are expected to get down in the mud, get our hands dirty and work hard on the creative process. First there is the dreaming and imagining process (I wonder, does God spend the nights dreaming about the next act of creation?). Then there is the listening phase. Listening to our bodies, and our souls, to our God and our communities. It requires vulnerability and a willingness to both make mistakes and also admit to the mistakes we have made in the past. Sometimes we need to compromise, be willing to change direction and possibly make painful adjustments to what we hear in the listening times. It requires a commitment to seeing the process through to the end, not stopping when the beauty is slow in being birthed and all we can see is the trauma of the process.
Given the cultural dominance of a left-mode manner of attuning to the world, we do not have much experience practicing imagining, much less anticipating, that one of our primary callings in life is to create icons of beauty…. The Soul of Desire, Curt Thompson
What Is Your Response?
Sit quietly in the presence of God. Think about the beauty God has already created in you. You might like to close your eyes, doodle or knit to help you focus. Don’t be shy. Don’t allow your mind to dwell on what still needs to be repaired or recreated. Think only of the beauty. As God brings things to mind write them down. Pray over your list and thank God for the beauty already created.
Now think ahead. What is one thing of beauty you think God wants to create in you in the future? If nothing comes to mind don’t despair. Take time each day to sit quietly in the presence of God. Read through the list of beautiful things already in your life. Write down what you learned through your reading, listening, and creative activities yesterday, and then ask yourself: What is the next beautiful thing God wants to create in me? At some point, I suspect, God will unveil a vision of possible beauty that will take your breath away. This is an exciting exercise to do in a community group where you can listen to and support each other’s exploration of the beautiful things God wants to create in each of you either individually or together.
God I thank you for beauty,
In me, around me, through me.
I thank you for that which is already present,
For that which is being birthed,
And for that which is yet to come.
May I listen with my ears,
With my heart,
And with my community,
To what you are creating.
May it take root and grow.
May it bud and flower
And produce fruit,
In me, around me, through me.
Christine Sine (October 2021)
Note: As an Amazon Associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
Now live and ready for registration! Join Christine and Lilly for a virtual retreat unlocking the wonder of the Advent season on November 20th, 2021 from 9:30 am-12:30 pm PDT.
A big thank you once again to St Andrews Episcopal church for allowing me to post this beautiful contemplative service.
A contemplative service with music in the spirit of Taize. Carrie Grace Littauer, prayer leader, with music by Kester Limner and Andy Myers.
Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-710-756 with additional notes below:
“O You are Beyond All Things (O Toi L’au-dela de Tout) – Taizé song” Words and music by Taizé Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“In the Lord — Taizé Song” Copyright and all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
“Rabboni Beloved” By Kester Limner and Andy Myers, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Kyrie” Music and Text by Kester Limner, shared under the Creative Commons License, Attribution (CC-BY)
“Što Oko Ne Vidje (What No Eye has Seen) – Taizé song” By the Taizé community, copyright 2010, all rights reserved by GIA/Les Presses de Taizé
Thank you for praying with us! www.saintandrewsseattle.org
by Tom Sine
Originally published on New Changemakers
“Since January 2019, the Southern Baptists alone have responded to 136 disasters across the country: hurricanes and tornadoes, wildfires and floods, with more likely on the way.
Between their recent responses to Sally and Laura, the hurricanes that scoured the Texas and Louisiana coasts in late August and early September, the Baptists had prepared almost half a million meals, put nearly 300 temporary roofs on storm-damaged homes, cleared trees from 2,300 more...” Smietana, Bob “White Christian America built a faith-based safety net. What happens when it’s gone?” Religion News Service 10/26/2020
A number of denominations including not only the Southern Baptists but Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Lutherans all have voluntary disaster response organizations. The largest of these organizations are “the 80,000 Southern Baptists who have been trained in disaster relief making them one of the largest volunteer disaster relief organizations in the country.” Ibid Religion News Service
As we race into the turbulent 2020s we are no longer in ordinary changing times. Suddenly we find ourselves racing into a decade of accelerating change. One of the most daunting challenges we are facing is not only rapidly increasing environmental disasters like Sally and Laura; we are also facing an alarming decline in the number of faith-based relief organizations.
As Pew Research has been communicating to church leaders in the US, for the past decade the church has been graying and declining because Gen Y & Z {the under 42}, by a concerning number, are no longer going to affiliate with our churches. All the pastors I work with are fully aware of the graying and declining of the church.
However, I find most pastors are surprised and disappointed, as some members began to return to their sanctuaries during the pandemic, not only by the decline in attendance. Pastors are particularly concerned by the decline in giving and volunteering for community service….like disaster relief.
Clearly, we are likely to encounter a growing number of environmental crises–so we really need to see the church-based disaster agencies significantly increase the capacity for a compassionate response as we race into this troubled decade. However, given the graying and declining of the major denominations that support these critically important disaster relief agencies, this seems to be in serious peril.
During this daunting pandemic, many local congregations have created an array of feeding programs and a few have even created community gardens with their most vulnerable neighbors. However, given the current graying and declining of the church in North America, I suspect our capacity for all forms of compassionate response could significantly decline as we race into the 2030s.
It’s here! As promised, Gearing Up for a Season of Gratitude is now available as an online course! Inspired by the celebrations of Canadian Thanksgiving at the beginning of October and American Thanksgiving at the end of November, we designate October and November as gratitude months on Godspace Light. Lilly Lewin and Christine Sine will encourage you to get ready by providing a collaborative retreat process that will help us enter this season of gratitude with joy and delight in our hearts. This course provides a fun process of interaction, creativity, and reflection.
How do we approach the world with gratitude and delight even in the midst of the most challenging situations? What if gratitude is more than an emotion? What can we do to bring more gratitude into our daily lives? These are some of the questions we grapple with as we look ahead to the changing seasons. What are your questions about gratitude? Join us and explore them in this interactive mini-retreat “Gearing up for a Season of Gratitude”.
All Saints Day has been celebrated since the 600s AD, and days to honor Christian martyrs started in the 300s. Depending upon your denomination or faith tradition, you may or may not have heard of it–or participated in a worship service where those who have died are remembered, and where we give thanks for those who have inspired us throughout the ages.
All Saints Day is a great time to remember family and friends who have died in the past year. It’s also a time to honor and remember people who have impacted our lives who have gone to be with God. While All Saint’s Day is traditionally on November 1st, you could celebrate this anytime around the beginning of November or as a part of your Thanksgiving celebration as a family or small group.
Here are a couple of PRAYER STATION ideas that you can do at home or with your entire Church Community or youth group.
CREATE A PRAYER TREE: you can use a Light Up Tree, like these found on Amazon or like in the
photo above. We used an artificial ficus tree that was already in the worship space and added white Christmas lights (soft not LED). We had a basket of sharpie markers of various colors and mailing tags from office depot/staples that already had string in them to use to tie them on the branches.
You can also create a tree with a few large branches (without leaves) stuck securely in a bucket and make tags out of colorful index cards or even print off various shaped leaves, punch a hole in the top and add some yarn…then these card tags or leaves can be added to the tree branches.
Have enough tags for everyone to have at least 2 apiece.
ALL SAINTS FAMILY TREE: The focus of the station is on the people who have encouraged our faith or the people who have inspired us to draw closer to Jesus
SIGN/Directions: Hebrews 12:1-8 Print out the passage and/or use it as your family devotion or as the basis of your sermon/talk.
If you do this as a family or small group, rather than as a prayer station, pass around a basket filled with tags and sharpie markers or pens for everyone to do this together.
You can also do this as a “Corporate Response” where your entire church community participates together rather than doing it individually as a prayer station. Have the tree set up in the front or back of the worship space and have the tags in the seats or pews or pass around a basket with the supplies.
FAMILY TREE (PRINT out this as directions for station or read aloud to have everyone participate together)
Consider all the people who have encouraged you to seek Jesus. Think about the people in your life, family, friends, teachers, youth leaders, neighbors, etc who have helped you along the way in your journey with Jesus or along your faith journey. These people might even be ones you’ve read about in books.
NOTE: if doing this as a corporate response, give people time to pray and time to write down their responses. Don’t hurry.
ACTION:
Part 1: WRITE their names on the tags and pray for them. Thank God for their lives and ask God to show you more of how they have impacted your life.
TIE THE TAG ON THE TREE (Or, have everyone come up to do this after the sermon, or following communion if done corporately. Or, they could do this on the way out of church)
Part 2: Now think of someone in your life who needs to know the love of God…who may need encouragement on his/her journey with Jesus. Write that person’s name on a tag and take it home with you. Hang it somewhere where you will be reminded to pray for that person. Ask God to help you inspire and encourage this person to know God better and ask God to help you to inspire others around you in the coming weeks.
This idea can carry on to THANKSGIVING and make it a THANKSGIVING TREE:
Continue the prayer tree idea …you can take off the names of the” saints” or you can add to the tags on the tree. If you used only one color of tags for the SAINTS tree, you might use a different color for the Thanksgiving tags.
SIGN/directions:
Philippians 4:6-7
Thanksgiving is a lost holiday in our culture…it sadly gets lost between Halloween candy and Christmas decorations and shopping. Yet we are called to give thanks as Jesus gave thanks.
So what are you thankful for today? What are some great things or some little things that you can see as gifts of God and thank God for today?
Give everyone time to pray and write.
ACTION :
Write your prayers on the tag and hang them on the tree. THANK Jesus for the things he has given you and ask Jesus to give you eyes to see the blessings and gifts he is giving you each week. and Ask God to help you be more grateful in the days ahead.
The Thanksgiving tree can be added to each day if you are doing it at home, or each time you meet if you are creating it with your small group or in your Worship community.
You can create the station in the narthex or entryway to the worship space or set up the tree in the sanctuary and add to it after communion or as you leave worship. Also, encourage people to write down what they are thankful for during the week and bring this to your worship gathering to add to the tree.
You could also have people bring in framed photos for their “saints” to share with each other. They could put the photos on a table or even near the altar to honor the people who have impacted their lives or the people they want to remember or honor on All Saints Day.
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Join Christine and Lilly for the next session of Facebook Live on Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 9am PT. If you are not able to join live, you can check out the recording on YouTube later.
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Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!