Hello, Friends!
    Some days we feel like dancing more than others.   Some days, for many of us, just opening our eyes and saying yes enough to put one foot in front of the other takes all our strength and good will.
    Fortunately, God’s love and generous provisions of Grace do not depend on how we feel, or even on what we consciously conjure in terms of “positive thinking.”
    We’re loved, anyway, every way, no matter what.  Emmanuel, “God with us,” doesn’t mean “God with us, if we act (or think, or speak) right, and earn it.”  
    Once we can rest a bit into that lovely, loving truth, it really does help us choose life, choose love, choose forgiveness (of self and others), and choose hope, in this season of holy waiting we call Advent, and all the time.
     I’m fond of that bumper sticker that denotes the expansiveness of God’s love, and God’s call of love to expand our embrace of others:

“God bless the whole world—no exceptions.”

     That means that you and I are blessed by the love of God,  along with all God’s other kids, even the ones we don’t like, or agree with, or understand.   That means even the parts of ourselves yet unresolved and fraught with pain are included in the healing embrace of that love.
       And that means we can “count it all blessed,” as we learn to accept what has been, be present in what is, and anticipate with new trust all that is to come.
     I look forward to blessing, and being blessed with you this Sunday, and all our days to come.

Shalom,

Sarah