Grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ! Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. - Philippians 4:6 I’d like to share a short devotional prayer with you this week. This prayer is from Phyllis Tickle’s "The Divine Hours, Pocket Edition". “Grant me, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while I am placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. men.” Go in peace and serve th

Grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ! Many of us have watched movies about pandemics and, try as they might, the movies never captured the day-to-day reality of a real pandemic. In the first month, I remember a friend saying to me, “I never knew a pandemic would mean doing so many dishes!” Those of us with children at home—all the time!—have lived a busy-ness unlike anything we have ever experienced. One of the odd things about this pandemic, however, is that while some of us have been busy, others have been bored out of their minds. God is with us in the stillness and in the busy-ness. Brother Lawrence, a monk who lived in the 1600’s, learned to connect with God in the stil

Grace and peace to you through our Lord, Jesus Christ! “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” - Acts 16:25 This week we learned about Paul and Silas’ journey to Thessalonica. That journey is part of a series of difficult journeys for the early church founders. Paul often ended up imprisoned during this time. While Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Thyatira, not only were they isolated from the new church in Lydia’s house, but they were also shackled in the innermost cell. Despite this, they prayed and sang hymns late into the night. How were they able to pray and sing in the darkness and isolation of prison? In t

Grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ! “For YHWH will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.” - Isaiah 51:3 William Cowper (1731-1800) was an English poet who suffered from severe depression. From within his own personal darkness and anguish, he wrote some of the most profound Christian poetry. God met him in his wilderness and made it into a garden like Eden, which has fed struggling Christians throughout the past few centuries. Here is his poem titled "Light Shines in the Darkness" (it is also a hymn called God

Grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ! It is so wonderful to be back at Briarwood with you all! I feel healed and restored, and ready to be back in ministry with you all. During this time when we are all apart, it is difficult to remember that we are still - together - the body of Christ. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” When I read that, the word “individually” stands out, because we are all in our homes and the concept of being the body of Christ together seems so distant. However, even though we cannot meet in person, we are still knit together by the Holy Spirit as the body of Christ. I felt this keenly