Just a Minute of Grace

Welcome to today and a minute of Grace!  We walk through life sometimes together, sometimes alone, and always in the presence of the Holy, the one I call God.  In that presence there is meaning in struggle and celebration, in the most ordinary as well as the extraordinary, in beauty and truth and ugliness and complexity.  There is meaning and purpose to the uniqueness of each of our lives and I am convinced we are each here for a reason.  So we walk, and in the very act of walking is the definition of courage because it means we haven’t stopped believing in life, even when it’s most difficult. In Genesis, Jacob struggles all night, I believe with the Spirit of truth about himself, the image of God in which we each are created.  I believe he struggles with his betrayal of his brother and father, his greed and selfishness, and his growth and maturity and desire for forgiveness and reconciliation that has come through years and journeys he didn’t expect to take.  At the end of the story it says this: “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip” (Gen. 32:31).  We don’t come through tough times, times of wrestling with our worst and best selves without scars, gray hairs, a few wrinkles, and limping – spiritually and sometimes physically – but by faith we’re still walking, and in that, I believe, is true courage and yes, beauty.  So let’s share the beauty and the difficult and the funny and the ironic and weird and the all too normal and in and through it all . . . a minute of grace!!!