Category: healing

Grace, healing, Inspiration

Grace! Amazing!

Rev Kathy

 

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The grace of God . . . I receive it continuously, but even after all these years, I don’t understand it. I am on the beach today, one of my favorite places in the world. The gentle surf, the vast sky, the sunrise over the ocean is grace to me, given by a God who deeply cares about times of re- creation and spiritual refreshment.

We who are Christians sing about grace often, and one of our most beloved hymns is “Amazing Grace” written by John Newton and published in 1779.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

The words of the hymn touch me beyond words, reminding me that, though I am undeserving, I receive the gift of God’s grace every moment of my life, through the calm and through the storm. It has always been enough to get me through. I love the words of Anne Lamott about grace:

I do not at all understand all of the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

My gift to you today is a YouTube link to a gorgeous arrangement of “Amazing Grace” performed by Noteworthy of Brigham Young University. Let it lift your spirits at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Mtpk4jeVA

Grace, healing

Mountaintop Moments

Rev Kathy

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Mountaintop experiences . . . so few and far between. They are the special times we long for, those times when we experience God in fresh, new ways. We travel along life’s dusty roads hoping for just one mountaintop moment. And on occasion, we do find ourselves with God on a high mountain. It’s worth the long wait.

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

(Matthew 17:1-2, New International Version)
We meet you on the mountaintop, O God, hoping for a glimpse of your glory. Hoping for a moment sacred and holy. We meet you, having ascended from a mundane existence. We meet you, hoping that your usual silence with us will turn into hearing you speak to us of greater times. We meet you hoping to transcend the ordinary and to find, in your presence, a holier moment of grace.

We linger on the holy mountain, O God, waiting for your transfigured presence, and hoping beyond hope that you will change us, if only for this moment in time. And then we descend into our world, the ordinary place we live, but we are not the same. We are no longer ordinary, because we have experienced you, heart and soul, in a fresh, new way.

We give you thanks, O God, for mountaintop moments.

Amen.

healing, Hope, Uncategorized

Healing Waters

Rev Kathy

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I have spent the past two years healing from end stage kidney disease. That does not mean I’m cured. But it does mean that I’m healed enough to have regained my strength and a semblance of normalcy in my life. My dialysis takes eight hours each day, but it has become an accepted part of my “new normal.”

Do I wish I had healthy, functioning kidneys? Of course I do. But I have embraced healing that is my reality, and it’s not a bad life. I have learned that beyond any doubt that the physical, emotional and spiritual parts of me are inextricably interconnected. Genuine healing occurs when all three are well balanced. This kind of healing has its way with the illness, and in very significant ways, thwarts the disease process. I am blessed to experience healing. It is as if God is leading me into healing waters that begin a process of being made well, in the Spitit, the soul, the mind and the body. Healing is not a noun, it is a verb, and it is a continual process within me.

Until God completes that miracle process, I rest on these words:

“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls my life.” – Akshay Dubey