Devotions

March 10 2025

Psalm 9 verses 1-2

I will give thanks to you, O God, with my whole heart; I will tell of all your marvelous works, I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing to your Name, O God.

When things are going badly we call on you for help., When we are afraid or ill or in danger we immediately pray for help. When we don’t talk to God is when everything is going well. We just don’t think about it. We are too happy or satisfied.

Sometimes I think we have it backwards. When things are going great we need to thank God. We need to jump up an down for joy and sing aloud songs of praise.

I can just imagine the expression on the faces of our friends and family. We just don’t do things like that. Maybe if we did we would bring more people to our churches. At least they would know that we count on God for good things. They would hear the good things God has done for us. Maybe then they would see that God is alive and well in our community. People would come because they would want what we have…. a real relationship with a living God.

Prayer: Living God we praise you and thank you We lift up our voices to you in song. Thank you for the good things in our lives. Thank you for the times of joy. We praise you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Homework: Take a few minutes to write down the good things in your life. Post the list on your bathroom mirror and thank God each morning during lent.

Devotional

March 9 2025

Psalm 4 verses 6-8 Many are saying, “Oh that we might see better times!” Lift up the the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord. You have put gladness in my heart, more than when grain and wine and oil increase. I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.

“Oh that we might see better times!” This really hits home right now. The world is a precarious place. War continues in parts of the world…the stock market is falling… crime is ever present…people have been laid off and jobs are scarce. Things are not any better than when the psalmist wrote. There is good news though. God is here and cares about us and the psalmist is sure of it. In spite of all the problems we can lie down and sleep knowing that all will be well.

God cares. Put your trust in God and “Dwell in safety.”

Prayer: Thank you for hearing me when I call O Lord. Help me to know that you are my safe place in an unsafe world. Let me walk each day in the light of your countenance and sleep at night in safety. AMEN

Devotional

March 8 2025

Psalm 5 Verse 3

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; early in the morning I make my appeal and watch for you.

I with it were so. I wish we all took time out every day to pray morning and evening. We have good intentions. We make plans to get ourselves into a routine. It lasts for a few days and then something interferes. It is so hard to be consistent. When we do pray it is often to ask for something….healing for someone…help for family…whatever. This is not bad but not enough. The Psalm clearly says “I make my appeal and watch for you.” The Psalmist sits and waits for an answer. How often do we wait for an answer? We pray and then we move on. When will we learn to wait?

Prayer: Patient Lord, thank you for waiting for us. Help us to turn to you in our joys and our sorrows. Most of all help us to wait and listen for your answer. AMEN

Devotional

March 7 2025

Psalm 14 verse 1

The fool said in his heart, “There is no God.” All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.

Some times, when things are not going well, it’s easy to wonder if there really is a God. when life smacks us in the face we ask ourselves how can a loving God allow this? It’s hard for us since we are so limited in our understanding. We don’t have all the answers…just more questions. And yet all around us we can see God’s hand at work…in children, in our friends, in our family. Miracles are all around us. We just need to open our eyes to see. God is with us.

Prayer: Ever present God help us to see you in the world around us. Let us know you in other people, in events, in nature, everywhere so that we know God when faced with “there is no God.”

Devotional

March 6 2025

Psalm 51 Verse 7

For behold you look for truth deep within me, and will make me understand wisdom secretly

You know me better than I know myself. don’t always look at myself that clearly. Maybe because of being afraid of what I might see. There are parts of me that I don’t like at all. Yet even when I can’t seem to do the right thing you still love me. I am comforted by the truth that you love me more than life itself as you choose to give up your life for me.

Prayer: God of Wisdom help me to see myself clearly. Speak to my soul and guide me in the right path. Give me the grace of your Holy Spirit. AMEN

Devotionals for Lent

I will be posting a daily devotional during Lent based on the Psalms

Ash Wednesday March 5 2025.

Psalm 51 : 1

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

We begin Lent with this Psalm. In the Ash Wednesday liturgy it is called Miserere Mei, Deus. I have always looked at that as misery, ignoring the Latin and just looking at the words. The Psalm is so bleak…begging God for mercy and forgiveness but this is how we begin Lent….in a posture of penitence. We tend to feel that all of Lent is like this and we need to spend the whole time on our knees. It wouldn’t hurt us if we did but Lent is more than that. It is a time for reflection and taking time to review of our being. It is also a time to know that God is a God of compassion and forgiveness.

Prayer: Loving God, forgive us when we see you just as a God of judgement and not as a God of compassion. Help us to rest in your loving-kindness and love. AMEN

Do we know what is moral?

I an living in Austin, Texas. It has been a real learning experience. There has been so much going on in the whole country. There is so much discord and separations that have made all of us become US/THEM. There is no longer an US in this country. I don’t know if all the conflict began with the issue of abortion but it is certainly a major part of it.

I don’t know what your views on abortion are. Each of us is entitled to our belief and it has become a major button to push. Still I am not sure how many people are aware of the extremes that is has reached here.

Many months ago there were two women who ran into problems with the law. One woman had an ectopic pregnancy and for those who are not familiar this is when the egg is fertilized in the fallopian tube and not in the uterus. This is a very dangerous problem which can end in the woman’s death. This pregnancy has to be aborted. The baby CANNOT survive to full term where it is and if not operated on the result with be the death of the fetus but also the death of the mother. The doctors here followed the law and sent the woman home because they could do nothing within the law. I know somehow the woman received care (I don’t know if she left the state or what happened).

Now for the second case: a woman showed up at the hospital carrying a dead baby. Again the doctors could do nothing. She was sent home. She became septic. I do not know how the issue was resolved but I know she survived.

Just a few days ago there was a third case that made the papers. Another woman was carrying a dead baby and the hospital could do nothing to help. She became septic and died leaving the husband with another child to care for by himself.

I sincerely hope that someone is considering the state responsible for these women and their problems. This is what happens when we legislate medical care. Especially when women are the only ones being abused and it is abuse. If I were of childbearing age I would move somewhere that the law doesn’t allow women to be treated in this way. This is what has happened in this country where abuse is not only allowed but is demanded by law.

I do wonder if once again women are being targeted as being less than. I wonder what would happen if men were being targeted.

I have neither heard or seen any other media conversations about these three cases escept in the paper here. There may be more cases that have not even made the press.

Abortion is a moral topic. It is as complicated as Solomon offering to divide the baby in two. I don’t know what the answers are but some of the current solutions allow people to die. I don[‘t see this as any kind of morality.

Sorry about the rant but I had to get this off my mind.

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Who are our enemies

With the elections going on in the US we are all bombarded with all sorts of rhetoric, promises and just stuff. I am so tired of it and will be glad when the election is over.

I recently watched a documentary on cults and found this quote. “To create fear you must create an enemy.” I had never thought about that but I think it is true. We have to have someone to be against and they can so easily become the enemy. The people running for office enjoy telling us bad things about their opponents. They waste little time talking about things that matter. It seems that maligning others is the method of today.

I am old enough to remember when this was only a marginal problem. The two parties did not seem to consider each other enemies. Compromises were made to get important bills passed. Now everyone follows party lines and nothing gets done.

Will we ever get past the anger and vituperation and do what is best for the country? Also, what happened to the moderates? I am one and feel very alone. If only dogs could vote.

Just move on

Some things are a waste of time. One of my saved quotes says” Proof is useless unless it’s proof of something people already want to believe.” from the book “The mysterious Benedict Society

It is east to want to change someone’s mind when you have lots of proofs to prove them wrong. However this is a useless exercise. Those who are entrenched in their belief will not be swayed. The mindset is already on default. No amount of talk will help. The only way I have found myself getting out of this situation is to back away and say we are each entitled to our belief.

This is especially true is out momentary political climate. Don’t waste your time.

Project Chaos

The last few days have been interesting. I ordered a cabinet to put in my bathroom. One of those that you have to put tohether. I have done plenty of these but someone was supposed to help me with it. After waiting over 3 weeks for that help I couldn’t stand it anymore and got it out of the box. Checked that all parts and screws etc were there and sat it in a corner.

A few days ago another week have passed and I just couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to tackle it myself. My 83 year old body was not so happy but I thought it would hbe good exercise.

I gathered all my tools and picked up the directions. Interesting.. not text and pictures just pictures. Lots of arrows that there was no ecplanation of why they were there. But I was ready. Time to get going.

Starting out I laid all the pieces out by numbers and picked the ones I needed to start with. No problem I understood what to do and began to build. After completing two halves of of the cabinet I was ready to stack one on top of the other. This was when I discovered what the arrows were about. Some pieces were facing forward and some were the back.

Taking the pieces apart (which took several hours) I now began to put them together correctly. Now that I had everything the right way around I was ready to put the two pieces together.

The top piece was too heavy for me to lift on top of the other piece I laid them both on the floor. This was going to do it. This is when I found out that since the pieces were particle board some places did not want to close tight or stay where they were supposed to. They were too loose.

Time to save the day with you know what. I put it generously over the parts and finally got it together well. Standing it up it looked great but I discovered that some glue on the bottom part had adhered to the bottom and part of it was stuck to the carpet. Carefully I got it free and hooray it worked.

The only problem now was the glue on my hands. I had never looked up how to get it off so decided to check my phone for instructions. Thats when I discovered that I couldn’t open my phone because it has a fingerprint lock on it and couldn’t recognize my print. I filed most of it off my thumb with a nail file.

The cabinet is now mostly done and when finished completely I will post a picture. After at least an hour I managed to get the glue off my finger get into my phone and find out that nail polish remover does a decent job of getting the glue off

Now I can take a deep breath and always wait for help.