For Such A Time As This 050420 – Bonnie Rhoads
To the Good Folk of the Palmyra Church of the Brethren,
Help Us Celebrate Mother’s Day!
Usually we pass out flowers to all the women in our church on Mother’s Day, which is this Sunday. Since we will not be physically together in worship, we’d like to put together a Mother’s Day slide show as part of our virtual service. So, here’s how you can help. Please send us:
Joys and Concerns
If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me. If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.
Joys!
To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.
Today’s Devotion:
I am thankful to Bonnie Rhoads for providing today’s devotion. Bonnie invites us to anticipate! If you wish to respond to Bonnie directly, her email address is rhoads.mb@verizon.net.
Shalom,
Dennis
Scripture - Ecclesiastes 3: 1-5
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…
Thoughts:
You might recognize the name Robert J. Wicks. For more than thirty years now Dr. Wicks has used his doctorate in psychology to specialize in the integration of psychology and spirituality. Often engaged as a public speaker and educator, he has even been a keynote speaker at a CoB Caregivers Conference. In his book Riding the Dragon, he offers ten lessons for inner strength at challenging times. Sounds like just the ticket for our current stay-at-home-to-stay-safe realities.
Lesson #4 encourages us to “seek hidden possibilities.” In it he recounts a childhood visit to the farm of a beloved aunt. Although it was winter, they took a walk over the frost-covered fields. The ground beneath their feet was dark and hard. But Wicks’ aunt invited him to kneel, touch the earth and feel the life therein. He felt nothing. She invited him to bend his ear to the soil and listen to the life. He heard nothing. She thoughtfully responded, “It is often when the land seems most barren, cold and dark that life is quietly growing.”
Although she was describing a field of soil, her wisdom could also be referencing our current circumstances. For many of us, this is a dark time in our lives. We are fearful for the health of loved ones as well as our own. For many of us, this is a cold time in our lives. We are bereft of the many personal interactions which nourish us. For many of us, this is a barren time in our lives as we find our resources limited; our cupboards perhaps more sparsely supplied than usual.
But the critical point this wise woman made is that “life is quietly growing.” As is the case in this winter of our self-isolation, even as we limit our actual contacts with the outside world. This can be a time of rest and restoration. This can be a time of self- nourishment; of experiencing spiritual or relational growth.
Spring did come again to that farm field, with tender shoots stretching from the soil. Spring will come again to our lives, and with it a new appreciation of our blessings and re-invigorated lives. And then will come summer, offering a time to gather the products of the soil, or providing us with the opportunity to function well within our new-normal, knowing that God continues to undergird us and bring us strength for the cultivating of our days.
Prayer:
Creator God,
In this, a bleak season of our lives, remind us of the cycle of life. Give us the foresight to remember that winter gives ‘way to spring. And hope does indeed spring eternal. Amen.
Help Us Celebrate Mother’s Day!
Usually we pass out flowers to all the women in our church on Mother’s Day, which is this Sunday. Since we will not be physically together in worship, we’d like to put together a Mother’s Day slide show as part of our virtual service. So, here’s how you can help. Please send us:
- A picture or scan of an original drawing of a flower. Get out your crayons, markers, colored pencils or pastels! If you want to dedicate your flower to someone, write their name on the drawing, saying something like:
- “I love you, (their name or what you call them). From: (your name or what they call you)” or
- “Thanks, (their name or what you call them), for being my Mom (or mother, or like a mom/mother to me)!” or something like that. From: (your name or what they call you).”
- Take a picture of yourself holding a sign with something written on it like:
- “I love you, (their name or what you call them).
- “Thanks, (their name or what you call them) ,for being my Mom (or mother, or like a mom/mother to me)!” or something like that.
Joys and Concerns
If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me. If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.
Joys!
- Jill Speicher has returned home from the hospital!
- Cindy Weatherholtz’s uncle, is now heading for five days of rehab and then home!
To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.
Today’s Devotion:
I am thankful to Bonnie Rhoads for providing today’s devotion. Bonnie invites us to anticipate! If you wish to respond to Bonnie directly, her email address is rhoads.mb@verizon.net.
Shalom,
Dennis
Scripture - Ecclesiastes 3: 1-5
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…
Thoughts:
You might recognize the name Robert J. Wicks. For more than thirty years now Dr. Wicks has used his doctorate in psychology to specialize in the integration of psychology and spirituality. Often engaged as a public speaker and educator, he has even been a keynote speaker at a CoB Caregivers Conference. In his book Riding the Dragon, he offers ten lessons for inner strength at challenging times. Sounds like just the ticket for our current stay-at-home-to-stay-safe realities.
Lesson #4 encourages us to “seek hidden possibilities.” In it he recounts a childhood visit to the farm of a beloved aunt. Although it was winter, they took a walk over the frost-covered fields. The ground beneath their feet was dark and hard. But Wicks’ aunt invited him to kneel, touch the earth and feel the life therein. He felt nothing. She invited him to bend his ear to the soil and listen to the life. He heard nothing. She thoughtfully responded, “It is often when the land seems most barren, cold and dark that life is quietly growing.”
Although she was describing a field of soil, her wisdom could also be referencing our current circumstances. For many of us, this is a dark time in our lives. We are fearful for the health of loved ones as well as our own. For many of us, this is a cold time in our lives. We are bereft of the many personal interactions which nourish us. For many of us, this is a barren time in our lives as we find our resources limited; our cupboards perhaps more sparsely supplied than usual.
But the critical point this wise woman made is that “life is quietly growing.” As is the case in this winter of our self-isolation, even as we limit our actual contacts with the outside world. This can be a time of rest and restoration. This can be a time of self- nourishment; of experiencing spiritual or relational growth.
Spring did come again to that farm field, with tender shoots stretching from the soil. Spring will come again to our lives, and with it a new appreciation of our blessings and re-invigorated lives. And then will come summer, offering a time to gather the products of the soil, or providing us with the opportunity to function well within our new-normal, knowing that God continues to undergird us and bring us strength for the cultivating of our days.
Prayer:
Creator God,
In this, a bleak season of our lives, remind us of the cycle of life. Give us the foresight to remember that winter gives ‘way to spring. And hope does indeed spring eternal. Amen.
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