Good morning...
Have you noticed that people are relating to each other in a softer way these days. They are coming together in a peaceful way to share their thoughts with less rancor than usual. We saw this happen after 9-11. I hope that we can hold onto the feelings of loving our country and what things are the most important. May we be the hands, feet, eyes and ears of God as we strive to be better neighbors and friends.
Hope your Monday is good.
God bless from
Corinne
Have you noticed that people are relating to each other in a softer way these days. They are coming together in a peaceful way to share their thoughts with less rancor than usual. We saw this happen after 9-11. I hope that we can hold onto the feelings of loving our country and what things are the most important. May we be the hands, feet, eyes and ears of God as we strive to be better neighbors and friends.
Hope your Monday is good.
God bless from
Corinne
The Devotional component in the Monday Writings of Women's Focus Ministries is titled, "Too Much of Anything" and was written by Mary M. Wilkins. The theme of the devotional is a study in what life could be better...the totally organized one or the one which reflects who I really am. Mary wrote, "Even though I think I would like my life to be like a beautiful holiday cookbook, smooth and orderly, I am beginning to appreciate all of the messy pages that reflect what my life actually is like." In her prayer she wrote, "Dear Lord, thank You for the gift of a messy life."
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Some are tall and slim, others are wide and solid, many more are thin and flat, but no matter the size and shape, my cookbooks are full of wonderful possibilities. I enjoy how orderly and set they appear sitting on the shelf above my desk. I look through them for ideas of things I want to try one day.
Notice the fallen
tree. It has made itself into a "bridge." This reminds me that we are
still useful. Even when we are down. Even when the "coldness" of life
completely surrounds us and covers us like a blanket.
Not even the most difficult of circumstances, nor our responses to them, can take away the sacred call and purpose the Lord has placed on our lives.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Today's Devotional
"Too Much of Anything "
written by
Mary M. Wilkins
Piled at least 14 inches high at the other end of the shelf is a different collection. Torn from magazines, cut from newspapers, copied from cookbooks, and printed from websites this stack of recipes is dog-eared and watermarked. These are recipes we have tasted. They are only slightly organized, and finding a favorite requires diligent flipping through the assortment.
When I am looking forward at my plans for my life, I see orderliness like the cookbooks standing in a row. When I look back I see a stack of crumpled and stained pages. Some of those pages were successful and I would like a repeat, others were too salty, or too soupy, so I wish I had a do over, so I might do it better next time.
There's a whole lot of plain recipes that appease our tummies most nights. But there are plenty of exceptions. Take basic mashed potatoes and gravy, add turkey and stuffing and it's the best meal of the year. However, if I a gave in to my kid's pleas for more turkey, and made it every week, our holiday meals would lose their specialness.
Even though I think I would like my life to be like a beautiful holiday cookbook, smooth and orderly, I am beginning to appreciate all of the messy pages that reflect what my life actually is like. I am grateful that God gave me a life with a little bit of everything, instead of the organized and predictable program of my imagination.
There's a chocolate cream pie recipe in that pile of mine that came out so sweet and rich hardly anyone could eat more than a few bites. A reminder that there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Don’t be obsessed
with getting more material things.
with getting more material things.
Be relaxed with what you have.
Since God assured us,
“I’ll never let you down,
never walk off and leave you,”
never walk off and leave you,”
we can boldly quote,
God is there, ready to help;
I’m fearless no matter what.
Who or what can get to me?
Hebrews 13:5-6 MSG
Dear Lord, thank You for the gift of a messy life. Please help me to remember that one page doesn't define the entire story of my life or anyone else's. Please help me to be kind and compassionate towards everyone you bring across my path. In Jesus name, amen.
One Thing Remains performed by Jesus Culture
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Snippets of Spiritual Insights from Beverley
Not even the most difficult of circumstances, nor our responses to them, can take away the sacred call and purpose the Lord has placed on our lives.
Therefore,
"Be strong and take heart, ALL you who hope in the Lord."
Psalm 31:24
written by
Beverley A. Napier
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In The News
Injustice in the US Supreme Court
My mother not only wanted me to be a lawyer, but she had me pegged as a US Supreme Court judge. Unfortunately, I never went to law school.
I was thinking of this recently when I learned that three of the US Supreme Court judges with whom I have something in common, sadly voted with the 6-3 majority on a case that was personal and meaningful to me, and to thousands of people in my situation. http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/US-Supreme-Court-invalidates-Jerusalem-passport-law-405391
But there’s a vast difference between moving an embassy and allowing a person to register his or her place of birth, in Jerusalem, as being in Israel. Even if one were to go by the 1949 armistice line, all Israeli hospitals in Jerusalem are in “western” Jerusalem, meaning territory Israel controlled from before 1967. (If you’re not clear on the nuance, please email me and I can explain.)
When my son was born in Jerusalem nearly ten years ago, other than the joy of his birth, two parallel things went through my mind. First, that we were going to have to join the fight to get “Jerusalem, Israel” listed on his U.S. passport. Second was that just by his being born, he fulfilled the dreams of generations of Jews scattered throughout the world for 2500 years, to return to Jerusalem. Prayer for return to, and rebuilding of, Jerusalem since the destruction of the Second Temple is part of Jewish worship, every day, three times a day. That’s a lot of days, and a lot of prayers.
I thought about my own relatives, and the two in specific for whom my son is named. They were born and lived in a time and place where being a Jew was dangerous, where anti-Semitism was rampant, and where slaughtering of Jews just for being Jews was commonplace. My son is named for my great grandfather and my second cousin, both of whom were murdered by the Nazis. As religious people, beseeching God to be able to come to Jerusalem and for Him to restore our holy city was surely something they did regularly. Seventy years later, their descendant was born in Jerusalem, fulfilling dreams for which they prayed fervently, but maybe could never imagine.
The Supreme Court decision to stand with the Obama administration refusal to allow us to list my son’s place of birth as “Jerusalem, Israel” is an injustice. Siding with Americans who are born in Jerusalem would not have been mutually exclusive to anything, or anyone’s rights. Nor would it harm U.S. interests.
Rubbing salt in the wounds is that three Supreme Court judges who are American Jews voted with the majority, for the Obama administration, against the family who brought the initial case, against my son, and against Jerusalem. I may not be a lawyer, and will never be a Supreme Court judge, but I have some things in common with these three judges all the same.
We were all born in America and are all proud Americans. We are all descendants of Jewish immigrants to the U.S. Some, like me, have a parent who is an immigrant, at least on one side. Some have a few generations of being born in the U.S., as I do, on the other side.
If we go way back, we are all descendants of Jews who were expelled from Israel centuries ago. In more recent times our families come from parts of the world in eastern Europe where they lived in similar conditions, some more religious than others and some less so, but all Ashkenazi eastern European Jews, albeit American born.
It’s hard to imagine that the ancestors of justices Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan did not live in conditions very similar to my own relatives who came from Hungary, Poland, and Russia. It’s impossible that those who remotely followed Jewish tradition didn’t utter the very same prayers that my relatives did, praying, weeping, dreaming to return to Jerusalem.
It seems that this is where similarities end, or at least many of them. In fact, when my son was a baby and before we went to the US Consulate in Jerusalem to apply for his passport, a day I’ll never forget, I was prepared to engage in an act of civil disobedience, willingly violating U.S. law, for the sake of Jerusalem. I won’t say how because maybe someone else will want to do it and succeed, but I had a plan to get my son a U.S. passport, that affirms he was born in Israel.
We may have the privilege of living, shopping, and going to the pool in Jerusalem today, but Jerusalem is still not completely restored, not yet. We still pray. We are still charged by Psalm 137, “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”
I understand the resistance to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel, albeit that it’s wrong and unjust. My thinking is very simple. Jerusalem has been, is, and always will be Israel’s capital. There’s nothing mutually exclusive in recognizing this as fact. And maybe one day, if our neighbors decide that it’s more valuable to make peace and build a future for themselves, rather than to fight us and blame us for all their problems, if a political and diplomatic negotiation concludes that we can share Jerusalem, then the U.S. can recognize that reality. But for now, the reality is what it is, and it’s a gross injustice that the U.S. does not lead the nations of the world in affirming that.
Who knows, maybe by doing so, our neighbors who also claim that Jews have no historical presence in Jerusalem will realize that if they want a piece of the pie, they need to sit at the table.
There’s no higher court on earth to appeal the Supreme Court’s ruling. Now we must pray that the next president will not only move the embassy and recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but that one day, U.S. policy will change, and the U.S. “Consulate” will be descended upon by thousands of people like us, waiting in line patiently, with joy in the air, and willingly pay to renew their passports and have “Jerusalem, Israel” listed as their place of birth.
As my son grows up and thrives in Israel, it’s hard not to imagine his namesakes, and all the generations of our relatives who could only pray for this to happen, weeping from heaven in great joy at the fulfillment of their prayers, in our lifetime. It’s hard to not to imagine as well, the relatives of Justices Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan not weeping as well. But not from joy.
I’m not suggesting that they should have voted as Jews before being Americans. In fact, a central tenant of Jewish law is that “the law of the land is the law.” Any case that makes it as far as the Supreme Court can go either way. Their decision may be bound in US law that they can hang their hats on. But I wonder if any of them considered the words of Psalm 137, or the prayer and yearning of their relatives to restore and return to Jerusalem.
Maybe their decision can’t be undone, but I pray that Justices Bader-Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and the others will realize their mistake, repent from their mistaken decision, and that their tongues not only don’t cleave to the roof of their mouths, but that they become a true voice for justice vis a vis Jerusalem.
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Today's Inspiring Graphic
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Prayers are lifted up daily for
you by the Devotional Writers
and the Monthly Writing Staff
of Women's Focus Ministries.
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