By Emily Huff:
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Candy hearts, red roses and glittery cards fill the stores. However, the image I’d like to share today is not a typical Valentine’s picture. It’s a picture from my favorite children’s bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible:
This came alive to me in a new way through the eyes of my daughter when she was only five years old. On our very last day of an incredible trip to Kenya in 2008, we were on a mountain known as “Prayer Mountain” overlooking the surrounding villages. She was looking through the Jesus Storybook Bible that she had heard me read countless times when she zeroed in on this picture. She told me that she felt she was the little girl who was running toward God the Father in the picture. Not only was this a defining moment in her own faith, but it became a specific marker for the direction I want my focus to be: to turn toward God rather than to be overwhelmed with disappointment, shame or regret.
When I catch myself using a sharp tone of voice or reacting with judgment and anger, this picture has become embedded in my heart reminding me that I have another path I can choose. Rather than responding out of my own pain or failure, I am learning to pray and ask God to bend my heart to help me turn toward God and toward others. This picture captures the way I want to live, no matter what the circumstances are.
Bestselling Brene Brown argues that “love is beautiful when it’s professed, but it’s only meaningful when it’s practiced.” May I keep learning to run from my defensiveness and toward my Father!
So, this Valentine’s Day, our prayer can be for God to give us the grace to run to Him knowing that He is already running to us to fill us with His mercy. And with that love, let us love one another so that those to whom love is a stranger may find in us a generous friend.
by Christine Sine
Today’s prayer is adapted from one I wrote a couple of years ago, but I find myself returning to it again this year as I prepare my heart for the coming season.
On Saturday, at our pre-Lent retreat, we started by burning the crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday; the traditional way that Ash Wednesday ashes are made. However, I have also written another centering prayer that I find helps me focus as I begin my devotional time each morning. I am easily distracted, especially early in the morning and prayers like this really help me to shut out those distractions. This prayer is meant to be said slowly with a couple of deep breaths being taken between each line.
I sit in the presence of eternal love.
I breathe in the rhythm of eternal breath.
I delight in the joy of eternal presence.
My soul is at rest.
My spirit has found peace.
God is in me.
God is around me.
Behind, before, on left and on right.
God is with me,
Wherever I go.
by Christine Sine
Over the weekend I created a Lenten garden. It has been a wonderful way to prepare myself for Ash Wednesday and the whole season of Lent. I know it will provide a wonderful tool for centering myself each morning as I begin my day with God.
I began a couple of weeks ago thinking about my chosen Lenten theme For Love Of The World God Did Foolish Things, which as I constantly remind you is based on the fact that Ash Wednesday is Valentine’s day and Easter Sunday is April Fools Day. I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this seemingly crazy convergence and envisioning how I could portray this in a garden. I used sand for the base to remind myself that the season of Lent commemorates Jesus time spent in the desert before he began his ministry. I am very aware however that deserts are not barren places, they are full of life. That is why I chose to decorate the sand with succulents, plants that would typically be seen in desert places.
In the centre are a circle of heart shaped rocks that I purchased specifically for my garden. The circle is broken by the three crosses at the top, symbolizing God’s most loving and seemingly foolish act of all, the crucifixion. That the Holy and Eternal One would allow a beloved Son to die in this way seems crazy. Undoubtedly: God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. (1 Corinthians 1:27) The Cross was both the most loving and the most powerful thing that our Creator could ever have done.
I have also reconfigured my sacred space for the season.
Lenten sacred space
And finally ss we look ahead towards Lent there are two questions I find myself grappling with that I would also like to challenge you to consider:
For love of God what is one thing you would like to give up during Lent?
For love of the world what is one thing you would like to give up for this season?
When I asked participants this at my retreat day on Saturday, people commented that it is easier to think of what they want to give up for God than to think of what they are willing to give up for the good of the world. Yet there is so much that we need to think about giving up. Perhaps there are privileges of wealth and education we need to give up. Or prejudice against those of other faiths, sexual orientations, or ethnic groups. Or you might consider giving up your car or the heat in your house. Whatever you choose it might make you look foolish in the eyes of your friends or the world but if it makes God’s world a better place it is worth it.
Ruth and Greg Valerio are giving up plastic for Lent. I plan to give up being judgmental. Prayerfully consider: For love of God what will you give up to make the world a better place this year? And please do let us know.
By Lilly Lewin
This week Freerange Friday is Sacred Saturday depending upon where you live! I just finished a very long day setting up a sacred space prayer room for the Warmth in Winter Conference here in Nashville. Please pray for the 2000+ jr high and high school students who are here this weekend to MOVE towards Love! Move is our theme. Since I’m in “conference land,” I am posting a Shrove Tuesday article I’ve posted before. It’s great for helping us get ready for the Lenten Season! Lots of ideas to try and encouragement to find some friends and eat pancakes! And you’ll even find a recipe video link at the end!
It’s hard to believe, but this coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent…now for many of us, we grew up with “Lent” as LINT, you know, something you’d find in the dryer or your belly button, rather than a season of the Church Year.
So if you are new to experiencing the season of Lent, you might be excited to know that we first get to celebrate with pancakes! Yep! I said pancakes, chocolate chip, strawberry and whipped cream, or just plain old flap jacks! This Tuesday, Feb.13th, is Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday.
Pancake Tuesday is better known in Britain. In the USA it’s also known as Shrove Tuesday. But we know it mostly as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras…Either way, the Tuesday before Lent is the day of celebration and confession before the fasting of the forty days of Lent begins.
So what is Shrove Tuesday and why should you care? Besides the fact that you get a good excuse to eat pancakes? As the youth pastor at Christ Church Glendale, I became a fan because the youth group helped host the annual Shrove Tuesday pancake dinner each year. But people have been participating in Shrove Tuesday since the Middle Ages.
People would clean out their pantries of all the fat, all the butter, eggs, milk, sugar etc in preparation for the Lenten fast. Pancakes became a good way to eat these things that wouldn’t last through the Lenten season. The word “Shrove” comes from the word “to shrive” to confess and/or hear a confession and thus, be forgiven. So people would seek out forgiveness on Shrove Tuesday so they could begin Lent with a clean slate. Check out a broader history here and here
I like to celebrate Shrove Tuesday because it is a great way to get your family, and/or your community together for fun and an opportunity for a time of confession ( We Protestants are not very good at confession so we need all the help we can get!)
Here are some ideas to help you start a tradition of Shrove Tuesday with your family or Church community:
• Invite some friends over or just gather your family.
• Make up a batch of pancakes (throw some scrambled eggs, bacon/sausage on the menu for those who need more protein than carbs, and add a fruit salad to make it healthy.
• Or if you don’t feel like cooking, go out with your group and have pancakes at Denny’s or IHOP. We’ve actually done this the last few years and had our devotion right in the middle of the restaurant! Last year we met at Fido’s in Nashville because they have amazing gluten free pancakes!
• Before the meal, Take time to celebrate all that God has done in your life so far this year.
Share these things with one another
• Have some cards or post it notes for folks to write down their celebrations and thanksgivings.
• Put post its’ on a poster or on a window making a thank you/celebration stained glass window that you can keep up and add to through the season of Lent.
• After dinner, take time to reflect on what hasn’t been great in your life this year, this month, this week, today…take time to confess these things.
• Have some paper and pens available and take a few minutes to write down and confess your “junk” to Jesus.
• If your group is a “safe” group, ( you know each other well) you might confess your “sins one to another” and then pray for each other.
• Some other tangible ways to do confession
After writing down your sins, the junk that separates you from Jesus, and the burdens weighing you down,
1. burn these confessions in the fireplace or in a fireproof dish
( you can use the ashes from these in your Ash Wednesday gathering to mark foreheads with a cross of ashes)
2. shred them in your paper shredder
3. or lay them in front of a cross.
However you choose to do your confession, actually do it and let God carry the junk, not you! Then celebrate together that Jesus has got this and don’t have to carry it any more!
While you are praying, remember the folks on the gulf coast and in New Orleans, the Mecca of Mardi Gras, who are still in recovery from the hurricane Katrina years later. Pray also for the Houston area and the Islands in Caribbean still recovering from Hurricane Maria. Pray also for other places in the world that see only the party side of Fat Tuesday and not the opportunity to connect with God. Pray also for the places of unrest throughout our world to be healed with God’s peace and reconciliation. (you can even use a map of the world and/or a current newspaper for inspiration as you pray!)
Now if you’re thinking, I wish I’d known about this LAST week, so I’d have some prep time, don’t be frustrated.
Be creative!
I’m a practitioner, not a legalist.
So why not have a pancake dinner, lunch or even breakfast some time in the next week. Doesn’t have to be Tuesday. At thinplace this year, we are celebrating on Sunday night since that is our regular time to gather. Stay at home, or go out like I said before. Whenever you have the pancakes, make it the beginning of your Lenten season either as a family or a group.
And as we are looking at Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent next week, take
today as a great opportunity to consider a Lenten Practice for the next 40 days before Easter.
If you’ve never “celebrated” Lent before, why not give it a go?
And if you grew up with a “sack cloth and ashes” view of Lent, let 2017
be a Lent “reimagined. “ One of my favorite authors, Ed Hayes, says to use the 40 days of Lent as a honeymoon, to fall more in love with Jesus!
My friend and former boss, Roger Foote, used to encourage us to add rather than
subtract during Lent. Rather than giving up something for Lent,
do something you’ve been meaning to do or neglected to do as your Lenten practice.
Rather than just giving up something like chocolate or TV, add something like:
• taking time for silence
• taking time to journal
• taking time to write, call, visit people you’ve lost contact with…..
• practice real Sabbath rest
• practice giving and serving the poor
• add in exercise
• add in more silence, less noise
• add more time with friends and family, less time on social media
• practice…..
you fill in the blank.
Just remember that if you choose to give up something as a part of lent,
like chocolate, or tv, you can participate in this on Sundays during Lent because Sundays are feast days not fast days…
but if you give up cussing, or whining, etc you might neglect this gift of freedom.
Another Practice we do in preparation for Lent is to clean out our refrigerator and pantry. This is something you can do on your own or get the kids involved too. My husband is the cook so we did this together. Take time to clean out the old jars of jam and things hiding in the back. Think about anything that might be hiding in your life, or anything that has expired. Take time to clean the shelves too. If this seems too daunting all at once, do this over the course of a week as practice of slowing down and cleaning out your fridge and your heart!
Look through your cupboards and pantry for food you don’t use or don’t plan to use.
Check the dates on packaging and throw out the expired food and give the rest to your local food pantry/food bank. This is a great practice to do in preparation for Lent. And it’s like the original idea of Shrove Tuesday!
So go find your spatula and buy some syrup…and celebrate a 1000 years of tradition and have a great Pancake Tuesday! And why not choose to fall more in love with Jesus during the weeks before Easter while you’re at it?
Our Lenten prayer kit is ready to go! Download 40DAYS toward Love at freerangeworship.com
It’s a way to pray each day using Prayer Hearts. There is an edition for person use and one that can be used with church communities.
For recipes and how to videos for Shrove Tuesday!
For more of the history, check out this post from ManyEats.com.
by Christine Sine
One of the things I like to do periodically is reflect on the scriptures I have read in the last few weeks. As I contemplated Maria Egilsson’s poem from this morning, a couple of scriptures caught my attention. I read through a post I wrote several years ago about this and felt I needed to respond with an updated post and prayer.
The first was 1 Kings 19:18, the story of Elijah fleeing from Jezebel into the desert. In the New Revised Standard Version it reads:
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stoood at the entrace of the cave.
How do we hear silence and find stillness in our souls? When we do what makes us want to respond by going out of the caves in which we have hidden in order to listen to God?
We live in a world that is full of noise. This morning I am writing to the sound of Tom vacuuming in the background on top of the ever present traffic noise. Silence is hard to find in our world and most of us don’t know how to listen or hear what it is saying to us. But if we sit in stillness and reach deep within our hearts there we can always find the silence of God. This is not a silence that makes us ask Why can’t I hear the voice of God? Nor is it a silence that blocks out the world around us. Rather it is a silence, a stillness that resonates with the peace, joy and love that can only be found when we walk close to God. It is a silence that calls us to intimate relationship with the creator of the universe. It is a silence that calls us each day to move out into God’s world in compassion and love.
The second scripture that came to me was Matthew 14:22-33, the story of Jesus walking on the water. Thinking about both of these today this prayer/poem welled up within my heart.
Christ you come to me
Not in the wind and storm
Not in the earthquake and fire
But in the sound of sheer silence.
You come in a breath of calm
That stills the sea
And calls to my heart;
Be not afraid peace be still,
Come walk on the water,
Follow me across the waves.
No noise is too loud,
No task too impossible,
No pain too unbearable,
When I hold your hand,
And enter the silence of your presence,
Then peace will be the pathway for my feet.
By Maria Egilsson —
In the stillness
Shadows sweep
Edged in
Filigree gold
As Grace
Calls us
To come
Out of the
Hiding places
That suffocate
The soul
To slip
From the confines
That imprison
And in the turning
Of moments
The Christ
Who rent the veil
Has come to
Ravish your heart
Maria Egilsson is a poet and artist at heart, loving to pen and paint about the redemptive love of Christ. Maria was born in the northern part of England but now calls Manitoba, Canada home.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
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!