Get on board
the Easter Express…
Gladden UP
755 Millers Run Road
March 29, April 5, 12, 19th
6 to 8 p.m.
Event includes: Craft, meal, Bible story and games
for children in grades preschool to Grade 5
with opportunities for older youth
to participate as leader assistants
Please help us be good stewards of resources
and pre-register
by calling
412-221-5594 by Mar. 25
A friend sent this to me this weekend, and I thought it was worth keeping and sharing:
O God,
everywhere present, but nowhere obvious, here I am where I always seem to be; betwixt cold fronts and crocuses, dreams and disappointments, failures and summons, flaws and gifts, growing up and growing old; betwixt isolation and intimacy, despair and hope, confidence and fear, life and death.
O God,
you must know how hard it is
to be in this between
where nothing is certain,
everything's in flux,
this relentless churning
from something I can't quite grasp
to something I can't quite see,
and it's all up for grabs,
and - please,God –
for grace.
Mercy out of me
this tumorous sense of fault,
this dead-weight of doubt
that I am not two-sparrows' worth,
and no concern of yours.
Deepen into me
the liberating assurance
that I am where you are with me,
stretched between the kingdom in our midst and the slow fullness of its coming.
Muster my courage
to let go of the clutch of grievances
that keep rendering me vaguely the same, to become vulnerable to surprise - by being one – taking some outrageous, specific dare of love.
Strengthen my trust
that you are in the turbulence
to intensify my struggles,
and to render me, as well,
sociable to joy, subject to your grace.
Keen my awareness
that uncertainty is my dance with you,
crises, seraphim in disguise,
rumpling the air with choice and change, tonging the coals of another chance, proclaiming betwixt as holy, cleansing my soul for gratitude, freeing me, when sent, to go for you, a little less afraid, a little more at ease.
