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Friday & Saturday, March 18 & 19 Sabbath Rest “A great benefit of Sabbath-keeping is that we learn to let God take care of us — not by becoming passive and lazy, but in the freedom of giving up our feeble attempts to be God in our own lives.” - Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting
Thursday, March 17 Music Reflection "Pilgrims' Hymn" | Genesis 21:14-21 I cannot read the story of Hagar and Ishmael without being overwhelmed by grief and pity. This enslaved woman, now rejected and driven away, forced to wander in the wilderness until she and her son were near death, walking away from him because she could not bear to watch him die—it hurts my heart to imagine the pain she was experiencing. It was difficult to choose music to accompany this poignant story until I encountered Stephen Paulus’s “Pilgrims’ Hymn.” The poetry beautifully expresses God’s eternal presence with us: before we are born, as we live through our days, and beyond, God’s grace and love abide forever. God was with Hagar and her son, just as God is with us now. “Pilgrims’ Hymn” by Stephen Paulus Even before we call on Your name to ask You, O God, when we seek for the words to glorify You, You hear our prayer; unceasing love, O unceasing love, surpassing all we know. Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Even with darkness sealing us in, we breathe Your name, and through all the days that follow so fast, we trust in You; endless Your grace, O endless Your grace, beyond all mortal dream. Both now and forever, and unto ages and ages, Amen. -Michael Dennis Browne
Wednesday, March 16 Devotional “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:21) During the fall semester of 2020, I had a severe anxiety attack that left me functionally incapacitated. I couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t make food; hell, the thought of opening my laptop for the online class was too much. The attack came in waves, each one hitting me just as I thought I would have the strength to at least get water from my kitchen – not 20 feet away. I was paralyzed. I could do nothing for myself. Every illusion of self-sufficiency I had was struck down, every wall I built to protect myself collapsed. I was stripped bare, reduced to the basic functions of life: I could only breathe, even as my chest constricted and my throat dried up. I could do nothing for myself but try to stay alive. When an anxiety attack has fully gripped you, you realize that regular advice doesn’t work. Regular advice, self-help suggestions, they just don’t work – and it is precisely because, so often, those pieces of advice tell you to do something. At the moment when I could not do anything, all advice that required something of me fell away. I had to hold to something else. It was in that moment, and in moments like it that have come after, that this beatitude from Luke was whispered in my ear. When I had been reduced to nothing, when I could do nothing for myself, this scripture came to me. It didn’t heal me, but it did promise me something. Jesus promised me that I would laugh again – that is, He promised me resurrection. Jesus’ promise does not end with a blessing of tears. He promises also to resurrect us from those tears, to turn our weeping into laughing. Jesus refuses to leave us in the tears. “You will laugh,” I heard Him say. “You will laugh because I have put to death everything that would separate me from you. You will laugh because I died but I did not stay dead, and neither will you. You may be dying now, but soon you will laugh because I have done everything that you could not do, and I have done it for you.” His promise to me was grace – and that is His promise to you, this Lent and always. - David King, MDiv Candidate, Princeton Theological Seminary
Tuesday, March 15 Poetry God Went to Beauty School He went there to learn how to give a good perm and ended up just crazy about nails so He opened up His own shop. “Nails by Jim" He called it. He was afraid to call it Nails by God. He was sure people would think He was being disrespectful and using His own name in vain and nobody would tip. He got into nails, of course, because He'd always loved hands--hands were some of the best things He'd ever done and this way He could just hold one in His and admire those delicate bones just above the knuckles, delicate as birds' wings, and after He'd done that awhile, He could paint all the nails any color He wanted, then say,"Beautiful," and mean it. - Cynthia Rylant
Monday, March 14 Devotional Let yourself be Loved This semester I have learned that I am, ultimately, a sheep. This is not to comment on the strength of my convictions. Rather, though I have seen the goodness of the Shepherd, I am prone to wander, again and again. Robert Robinson put it best in his incredible hymn “Come thou Fount,” when he said, O to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. In the turmoil of first semester I was so gifted to make true friends who have now become like my family. With the closeness of family comes also the unguarded versions of ourselves, that is often too quick to speak or act, at risk of hurting a friend. As often one of few people of faith in my circles I felt great responsibility to show Christ’s love in my word and deed. Every fault in my treatment of others often feels enormously magnified, as Robinson said, like a debt of inadequacy. Here I was fundamentally missing what it truly means to be in friendship. For all my faults my friends are so gracious, gracious like the Father is. By constraining myself to be perfect I was missing how life giving grace is. Radical grace - the kind that says “Yes, you are all kinds of broken and yes we love you anyways!” If we are able to bear with one another in love and friendship, how much greater must the father’s love for us be? How much greater the gift of grace that Christ offered for us all on the cross, His sinless sacrifice, His beggar's death for us, though we ourselves drove the nails through his hands. The painful and yet necessary process of turning again and again to grace and to forgiveness is painful but it is so healing, and so necessary. And so through my friends, God has shown me His own grace. He has called me and my heart, so prone to wander, to Himself with patience. This lent I invite you to quiet the noise we use to mute the hurt we feel at inadequacy, in our treatment of others and in others' treatment of ourselves. Turn to God- His grace is sufficient, a life giving wellspring. Turn to the love that all other love is a signpost towards. - Sarah Burbank-Embry, ’26, Chapel Deacon
Sunday, March 13 Scripture Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah