His Yea, My Amen

Painting by Lucy Bacon

““All little miniature beginnings but all ‘beautiful in their time’, like the dark green August oranges in the court below. The fact that they have got thus far into being is more than a promise. Like all the promises of God they are (given the conditions) an accomplishment begun. His ‘Yea’ only waits our ‘Amen.’” ”

— Lilias Trotter, 11 August 1906

Ten years ago, I shared with my husband how I longed to write a blog again. I had been out of the practice for a few years, and once our fourth baby was beginning to toddle around our apartment and master every barrier we tried to use to contain him in manageable areas of the home (he was very determined to catch up with his sister and brothers), we were preparing for a move across the country to attend seminary and pursue further ministry. One thing I had put on the shelf for a while was writing, but I was sensing a need to practice this refreshing and creative work once again. I wasn’t ready to write publicly, but my husband encouraged me to start a blog and just write for myself and him until I was ready to share my words with others. So I did. I began Every Morning New Mercies.

On this 10 year anniversary of my writing home, we have now moved geographically twice more, planted a church, and dwell in a land that I compare to Frodo’s Shire, with Rivendell not too far away. In celebration of the gift this blog has been to me from my Lord Jesus, and the joy of so many words written, I have decided to: first, start a Substack; second, tell people about it(!), third, pray and dream and consider what the Lord would have me write.

What you can expect monthly…

In a busy season of raising teens and tweens, church planting, and beginning a piano studio at home, you can expect two monthly pieces posted on Substack and here on the blog: one where I write a brief essay on a topic I am passionate about, and one post sharing quotes from the reading I have done that month combined with beautiful images I find.

Subscribe to Every Morning New Mercies
on Substack @everymorningnewmercies

Nothing will change here. I have never had a subscribe button because I haven’t been able to figure it out (!) or wanted to pay the fee for one, however, one of the perks of a Substack is not only the community it brings to my writing, but it also provides me with a subscribe button (for those who have the Substack app). But if you are a reader who prefers to just pop on here whenever it suits you best, and you’d rather not be notified, I totally get it, and I welcome you here. With the addition of a Substack, I am folded into a community of like-minded writers, authors, readers, and artists (all of whom love Narnia & Middle Earth, so I’m in good company)!

With all that said, I think a Substack and a subscribe button will help my writing get out to more people, Lord willing, to bless them.

As always, thank you for reading. I hope it is a blessing.

Gathering Gardens of Words in April & May

It is the first day of May, but let’s pretend its still April for a moment! I am just going to tuck this little garden of words into April’s archive before we get too far into May! It has been a wondrous month of welcoming four new babies into our little church family through baby showers, baptism, meal trains, and the anticipation of another sweet one next month. We are rejoicing that God is bringing so much life into our community. In the meantime, I have been finding pages to savor in a variety of books, and I would love to share some quotes here to cultivate thought and hope.

Photo from Unsplash

“One hears of the light chasing the darkness - but I never saw it done before. It was literally hunted and driven down due west in the sunrise into this great bay of sky between the Matterhorn and the Obere Gabelhorn. When I went to keep watch in the front of the house at quarter to five, the sky was still soft lavender blue. Then came from the zenith a flush of violet, sweeping the blue down to the snow of the skyline and that was chased down by mauve, and the mauve by dim rose colour, and the rose by apricot. Then the peak of the Matterhorn flamed up in brilliant rose and madder - and the day has come.” -Lilias Trotter, from the book A Blossom in the Desert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter, collected by Miriam Huffman Rockness

Art by I. Lilias Trotter

I greatly appreciate detailed descriptions of beauty in creation. I find that Lilias Trotter is among my most loved writers of descriptions of the natural world. Glory upon glory revealed through language in a way that we can vividly recreate in our imagination. It is like drinking endlessly from a mountain stream, and if you read these authors regularly, the well never seems to run dry. What a gift Lilias had to be able to communicate through language, the vision beholden in her eyes and translated through words into the mind of another. Her works of art, some just sketches, or incomplete paintings, give us a glimpse into her life and travels serving the Lord amidst a foreign culture. Unfinished art seems to me to be more realistic, giving us a vision of the artist’s life in process, perhaps being interrupted by a conversation, or lunch time, or changes in weather from where the art is being made. Perhaps the child she was painting came up to her and asked her to play a game with sticks and stones, and maybe she put her tools down to give attention to this little one… just a thought.

Woman Playing a Harp (Lavinia Banks?)
National Gallery of Art

“Oh! Is it not to the eternal praise of a covenant-keeping God that poor pilgrims - wandering through a wilderness and having to wage constant war with the world, the flesh, and the devil - should yet be enabled to sing gloriously as they put their enemies to flight and overcome by the blood of the Lamb? It is the overcoming ones who learn to praise. The fingers which can most adroitly use the sword are the most skillful in touching the harp. Each time God gives us the victory over sin, we learn a new song with which to laud and bless His holy name. Does it not make your heart leap to know that your Lord takes pleasure in your praise?” - Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

and…

“How well the wee chicks know this! When the least thing alarms them, or the drops of rain come pattering down, then fly quickly to their mother’s wings for shelter and safety, and you can see nothing of them but a collection of legs, tiptoeing in their eagerness to press very close to the warm breast which covers them! …my faith nestled up, as it were, to the loving heart which brooded over me and found such a glow of everlasting love there that all outside ills and evils were as if they were not. …But if any timid, afflicted souls read these few lines, let me whisper to them to run at once to their God… The hen effectually conceals her brood from any passing enemy- but God is an impenetrable hiding-place for His people. Surely this is the meaning of the psalmist when he says, “I will trust in the covert of Your wings,” (Psalm 61:4). Is it not a sad wonder that, sometimes, we willfully stay out in the rain and the storm, facing unknown dangers-when all the while, so gracious a shelter is provided and accessible?”

-Susannah Spurgeon, A Basket of Summer Fruit

These two quotes have spoken such gratitude and remembrance to me. At a recent baby shower, I read these words of Susannah Spurgeon to speak of our gratitude to the Lord of the joyful gift of new life to this family, and also to remind us in the uncertainties and unknowns, to flee to our God who shelters us and our little ones and hides us under His wings of refuge in the beautiful and hard work of motherhood.

The End of Woman, by Dr Carrie Gress

The following collection of quotes is not quite a garden of botanical beauty, but more a collection of aloe vera pups, prickly, but meant to aid in the healing of the world…

“Feminism’s failure, at root, is its misdiagnosis of what ails women. Feminists have worked hard to mitigate women’s suffering, but by trying to eliminate our vulnerability, by making us cheap imitations of men, and by ignoring our womanhood. Setting off in the wrong direction, the prescribed fix can’t really fix anything. Instead, it has erased women one slow step at a time. As those slow steps get faster and faster, women find themselves at risk of being erased from the movement that once purported to liberate them, finding themselves undefined in an increasily progressive world.” -Dr Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

This morning, I went to my mammogram appointment. When filling out the paperwork at the clinic, a question was posed as to what my sex designated at birth was and then I was asked a second question: which gender do I identify with? What happened to the simple question: which sex are you? Male or female? This book answers the question of what happened, and it goes far deeper into history than readers may be ready for. It is disturbing. There were times I almost had to close the book because of the evils described within. But truth is always brought into the light. I deeply respect the courage of Carrie Gress for this historical overview and her scholarly research on this topic.

“Feminism has been deeply influenced by the occult, going back to its earliest stages. The source, in part, is connect to Mary Wollstonecraft’s kin and legacy, particularly in the work of her daughter… Mary Godwin Shelley, author of Frankenstein… (Percy) Shelley viewed the diabolical passions as the opposite side of the typically masculine characteristics of order, reason, law, hierarchy, obedience, and authority. God, he believed, was the source of order and all that is male, while Satan, represented by the serpent, was the source of passion and creativity. Men and women, in his view, were not meant to be children of God, but rather opposing forces… He used the devil and myths to create new narratives in the minds of readers, taking the place of earlier religious ideas. The Romantics knew that, in order to reshape culture, one had to go back to the beginning of culture and rewrite it… With Cythna, Shelley created a new female archetype, the embodiment of the human creature that Mary Wollstonecraft idealized: the woman as an individual without any connection to motherhood, husbands, or children… Cythna became the ideal individual, not connected to any kind of family, the model of womanhood. Her only real personal connection was with Satan. Shelley presciently saw that sex differences, what he called “detestable distinctions,” would “surely be abolished in the future state of being.” -Dr. Carrie Gress, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us

Though I disagree with Carrie Gress on many of her theological leanings described in other books (I am not Roman Catholic, I am a Christian in the Reformed tradition), I think this book is one of the most important historical overviews of the feminist movement of our time. It’s a beginning at least, to expose the deception that has cost the lives of so many, one million babies killed in the United States in 2020 alone. When society has been burned to the ground, which in this case, it has, we have the greatest opportunity in the world to rebuild with truth, beauty, and goodness with the resources of the One who is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, Jesus, the Son of God.

Something to Watch… Eve in Exile… let’s build.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

-2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV

Spring Morning, Cloudy, Eragny, 1900, Camille Pissarro

Home Making ~ The Ministry of Ironing

I was listening to a podcast this morning on gratitude.
I want to say thank you today to anyone who is taking the time to read my words.
It is so life-giving just to write creatively. And if anyone is consequently blessed by these words,
that just adds another layer of gratitude. So I want to say, “Thank you.”

I turn on the faucet and a thin stream of water fills the reservoir of my metal iron. Returning it to the ironing board, I push the plug into the outlet in the wall. It will take a few minutes to heat up the plate and produce the steam needed to get the wrinkles out of the fabric laid flat. Like divets in the road, like ridges on a hilltop, these little creases will be straightened and made plane.

I remember as a child watching my mother iron clothes every weekend. I didn’t have much of an appreciation for ironing back then. In fact, I determined in my adult years to only buy clothing that did not need an iron. I did not know then the many graces that were to be found in the ministry of ironing, but my mother knew, and one day I would learn it too.

As my mother faithfully ironed clothes on a Saturday evening, the fresh mown grass smell swooping in with the wind from my parent’s bay windows, my innermost thoughts would pour out in conversation. Sometimes I kneeled beside her bed and began to help fold towels. Sometimes I would just flop down on her bed forlorn about some kind of middle grade angst whether it was a friendship struggle, or an exciting fountain of news that must be told to someone and rejoiced in together, or perhaps just sharing my wildest dreams, thoughts and questions. Meanwhile, my mom ironed the clothes, the tablecloths that would grace the dining table for Sunday noon meal guests, and my dad’s buttoned shirts and slacks. Sometimes she would pull out her Bible and point me to one of the many verses highlighted there, the pages  scented with a fragrant real leather bookmark.

When my mother was standing at her post, serving our family through the ministry of ironing, the door stood open, an invitation for my sisters and I to come and chat. The warm glow of her lamps on the bedside tables drew us in. The view of Mt Baker southeast of our home in British Columbia, and the descent of the sun lit up the dusky sky with pink and orange hues upon the city of Vancouver from where our house was perched on a plateau that overlooked the Fraser Valley. This scene invited my sisters and I into conversation with her at the end of a long week.

When at a discipleship school in Texas in my college years, I was assigned to be a housekeeper for an elderly woman and a middle-age woman who shared a home together. These two women taught my friend and I their standards of housekeeping at their home and the specific ways they wanted things done. I was a little afraid to leave a speck of dirt unconquered or a plant not returned to its appointed place, because the standards were high. Their standard for excellence taught me the virtue of doing things well and offering my best to the Lord. These lovely and wise women always served us ice cream and enriched our souls with godly conversation after our work day. They taught me how to fold flat sheet corners on guest beds, brought us to tour their gorgeously renovated bed and breakfast mansion, and I learned how to set up a Texas patio greenhouse during the winter months to protect their garden conservatory, and how to take it apart in preparation for the summer months. It was such a joy to learn from them.

Many years later, just after our wedding, my husband and I were in Huemoz, Switzerland, living in a corner room of an old chalet in a Christian community called L’Abri, which in French means “the shelter”. One of our work days involved being invited to a home chalet, just down the hillside from the main chalet. A couple of us were assigned many housekeeping duties for the morning work: vacuuming their floors, washing dishes, preparing food, and yes, ironing tablecloths and bedsheets. I took it all in as I watched the woman of the house prepare food for about 20 of us who would be eating lunch at her home that day.

Classical music filled the home from a record player. She showed us how to set her table for the group, everything intentionally placed, and delicious food served to eager and impressionable young adults. As I worked, I listened to conversations, set my hands to the task, and absorbed all I could about the atmosphere of her home: a place of mutual love, with sunlight streaming in through windows, older children at play or work, a love of learning and strong work ethic meant to bless the community. It was just beautiful, and it left a mark on me and on my husband, another seed planted to prepare us for our work of preparing a home for our future children, in the ministry of parenting and the ministry of church work.

As I stood at my ironing board the other day, smoothing the wrinkles of a dress, there was a pleasant slowing down, a monotonous yet satisfying labor with my hands. There was a quietness, a methodical outpouring of love to care for and steward the resources God has given us. There in the quiet, my mind relaxed as if the creases in my thoughts, too, were getting ironed out.

Each of us are being formed daily, and the Lord continues to iron out the ridges and ruffles of my soul that come from living in a broken world. The Lord ministers to me in the quiet, and I am restored. In all the work of God’s faithful hands, he is preparing for us a home. All Christians, men and women are called to hospitality - ours is a faith of hospitality, the creating of home that shelters others in this dark world. The creating of a home is the creating of a city on a hill, a light to draw others out of the darkness into the Kingdom of Light. Our God is making a home for us here and in an unseen realm. One day the veil will be lifted and the new heaven and new earth will merge as one. Our God is the greatest home Maker. May we be home makers who reflect the joy and beauty of His work for those entrusted to our nurturing care.

John 14:2-3

“In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

You Are A Tree - Book Review

Years before I met my husband, I asked the Lord if He would bring me a man who loved Him with his whole heart, who wanted to serve Him in intentional gospel ministry and who was a tree planted by streams of living water. I chose Psalm 1 as the prayer I would pray for the man I wanted to marry one day. Jesus answered my prayer most blessedly. This passage of Holy Scripture is one of the many Scripture references alluded to in the book, You Are a Tree: and Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer, by Joy Clarkson.

Like so much of the Bible, God reveals who He is to us through the use of metaphor. Joy Clarkson takes this literary device and intelligently wields it to open the gates of metaphor to discuss how understanding the metaphors we use in our daily living can enrich our understanding of God and ourselves.

One of the purposes in this book is to introduce the reader to an idea. In this book, Joy is not trying to give a comprehensive treatise on all the ways we can use metaphor, or a concise tome of all the metaphors we use in the English speaking world. She is merely inviting us into a deeper understanding of the use of language and giving us an introduction into the vast study and awareness of how metaphor is used to narrate our ordinary daily lives, and how the words we use can shape and define us.

Another introduction that I greatly appreciate is how she uses her scholarly knowledge to benefit the reader by making the study of classical literature more accessible to several generations of non-classically trained humans. This is not an insult to those who were not classicaly trained or exposed to great works of literature, it is a reality that most education in the western hemisphere is not based on learning from ancient history with God at the center of all learning. As someone with a good education and a college degree, I still have so much to learn. Joy Clarkson references ancient books I have never heard of, vocabulary I didn’t know existed, and, with humility, takes the reader on a learning pathway that incorporates not only great works of literature but also incorporates references to other works of art, poetry, music and further reading. One caveat regarding these other references: be discerning as you engage with other works that are mentioned, always guarding your heart with wisdom and Scripture. The writer’s ability to engage with culture as a Christian is mature, wise and discerning, but not all readers will be able to engage with that level of discernment based on where they are at developmentally or in regards to maturity and wisdom. Not every reference is going to be beneficial for all. Engaging with pop or secular culture requires much wisdom and accountability, which I think she would clearly agree with.

The most important thing I would say about this book is that she faithfully proclaims her steadfast faith in Christ and her submission to the Word of God. This is perhaps the most beautiful thing I see in this book, that even in a world of academia, she unapologetically declares her faith in Christ and her dedication to the Word of God, thus pointing readers to the Way, Truth and Life, Jesus.

The Christian life itself is a metaphor, the carrying over of our true home to this world, where roots draw their nourishment from the springs of eternal life, unfolding in the light of True Wisdom, safe in the arms of the Most High, at home in love, changed from glory to glory, burdened only with the weight of love.

I would recommend this book to middle school and high school students, and those entering their college years, or anyone who is like me, a lifelong learner.

Word of God, Nourishment of Heaven

Greetings! I hope your Holy Week was full of light and life and hope! And Happy Resurrection Day to all who believe! Today in my daily Bible reading plan, I actually read the chapter in Isaiah for yesterday. Isaiah 58, one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. There is so much living hope in these words from the Father, from YHWH, given to His people at that time and in that historical context, and written and preserved forever for us and for all His people in ages to come. The Word of God, given for us. It reminds me of the time, many years ago now, my daughter sent a little birthday card to her toddler friend. Her mother told us she was so excited to receive it, that her little friend ate the card! What a hilarious memory (Ada, we love you!) But that’s such a perfect picture of what God wants us to do with His Word! He wants us to be so excited about receiving and hearing from Him in His revealed Word that we will want to be nourished by it, inhale it like oxygen, meditate and reflect on it and let it actually change us. When we ingest food, our bodies are transformed and affected by the very things we eat. Our lives can also be transformed in this way by feeding on His Word. If you are not in a daily rhythm of feeding on God’s Word, let me commend this reading plan to you for your benefit: Seeing Jesus Together You can even start today!

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;

you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the LORD will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to dwell in.

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,

from doing your pleasure on my holy day,

and call the Sabbath a delight

and the holy day of the LORD honorable;

if you honor it, not going your own ways,

or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;

then you shall take delight in the LORD,

and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;

I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Isaiah 58

Gathering Gardens of Words ~ March

One of my blueberry bushes awakening to Spring.

The gate of Spring has lavishly swung open and welcomed us into its joyful cadence. I noticed the first clues last week on a walk as everywhere around me, burgeoning buds of green emerged from branches ever so cautiously. Cows arrived in fields, baby goats and sheep lay in pastures of sunshine, and birdsong was heard in bushes and trees as I meandered past. Of course, the familiar dog friends came running out to bark uproariously as we passed by quickly on the other side of the road. At home, I moved my outdoor plants back to their stations, hoping they survived the winter. Day by day, I gave a passing glance at the branches to see if anything was happening, and it was. Marvel reawakened in me as it does every Spring. You’d think after forty-six revolutions of the Earth around the sun, I would not be surprised anymore by the seasons changing, but each turning of the season brings a fresh delight to my soul. I hope that I will never lose that wonder, even when I am eighty years old.

We entered Holy Week at our church this past Sunday, led in worship by the younger members of our congregation, waving palm branches, the older kids guiding and carrying the younger ones during the first hymn. With pure joy, we were led into this most important of weeks in the Christian calendar, led by children and infants to worship the King. It was a fitting start to this week of joyful illuminating hope and celebration of the victory of our King over the sin and death of this dark world.

This month, I’ve gathered some words to share with you, some beautiful words that have watered my soul and nourished my thinking. I hope they bless anyone who is reading today, that these words point you to the Creator, the Savior, the Risen King, Jesus who sits this very day on His throne. May you know Him more deeply today than ever before.

Photo by Blake Verdoorn on Unsplash, Multnomah Falls, Oregon

“Joy being of God was a living thing, a fountain not a cistern, one of those divine things that are possessed only as they overflow and flow away, and not easily come by because it must break into human life through the hard crust of sin and contingency. Joy came now here, now there, was held and escaped.”

― Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch

The Good Shepherd, by I. Lilias Trotter

Beneath Thy Cross

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

-Christina Rossetti

Photo by Alexander Ramsey on Unsplash

“And Christ’s life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, then it is all too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower. And this can happen very quietly. The admirer can be under the delusion that the position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!” - Søren Kierkegaard, Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter

Blossom in the Desert, I. Lilias Trotter

“Oh, that we may learn to die to all that is of self with this royal joyfulness that swallows up death in victory in God’s world around! He can make every step of the path full of the triumph of gladness that glows in the golden leaves. Glory be to His Name!”

― I. Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

Bread and Wine - Lenten Reflections

Bread

I didn’t plan to remove gluten and wine from my personal menu this year, but when symptoms of food sensitivities began to reveal themselves and I could no longer bear them, I made the unwanted decision to remove these triggers and pursue the health of my body. The funny thing is that these symptoms began to pile up right around the beginning of Lent, a season of the church calendar that reminds us of our mortality, our brief lives pre-eternity. What was also funny, yet not entirely, was that I had just become good at making sour dough bread! What impeccable timing! The very food I cannot eat, the very food I crave fresh out of the oven slathered in salted butter, is the very thing that I must withhold from myself. And it taunts me in a way, the little glass mason jar of a sour dough culture that sits beneath my kitchen lamp or on the window sill after I’ve fed it. When preparing the bread for my kids, the fragrance of bread rising, baking, and cooling on the counter are in my senses of sight as I measure ingredients, of smell as the dough breathes, and of touch as I score the top of the boules with lovely designs. Everything within me says eat, and then I remember the Lord said hundreds of years ago,

“But he answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ~Matthew 4:4

Wine

I never really liked wine until I got married in my late twenties. My husband enjoyed it so I thought I would try a few sips at times. Mostly with a sour look and cringy face, I would take a few sips before passing it on to my husband to finish. But eventually I did acquire a taste and it was delightful. In the past several years, I have noticed that I started getting headaches that would last for hours. “Perhaps,” I thought , “White wine will be safe,” but most recently, when having a single glass, I ended up with a painful 20 hour headache. I declared that my journey with wine has ended… except on the Lord’s Day, as we gather with our church community. I take the bread and the wine during the Lord’s Supper, a small and simple portion, take, eat, drink.

What could all this mean? I sit and ponder.

“But he answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ~Matthew 4:4

The answer comes in the form of a catechism question and a dear sweet group of Kindergartners. While assisting at our little Christian school yesterday, the lovely teacher asked the class, “What is the Gospel?” The children replied, “Jesus!”

Amen!

The gospel is Jesus. Jesus is the Word, and He is my sustenance in this life and throughout eternity. He is nourishing my mind, body, and soul with His Word, every word that comes from the mouth of God.

“Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” ~ Matthew 26:26-29 ESV

Thankfully, my body can currently handle the bread and wine at communion, once a week, a small portion. But there may come a time when I may have to eat gluten-free communion bread and grape juice, and that will be okay, not quite as okay as the delicious homemade bread our bread team makes each week, but it will be okay! ;)

For now, I want to share with you a sour dough recipe that I’m certain you will enjoy (unless you can’t eat gluten)!

Sour Dough Bread Recipe: photos attached!

““Self-denial means knowing only Christ, and no longer oneself. It means seeing only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no longer the path that is too difficult for us. Again, self-denial is saying only: He goes ahead of us; hold fast to him.” ”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, p. 49