There are times when I read the Bible and the events are so strange to me living in 2022. It’s difficult to understand ancient customs. Yet, nestled right in Genesis 38 is “prostitution” which lends understanding to it being the “oldest profession”. In Luke 20:27-40 Jesus was confronted by the Sadducees about the very question…

Do you take your body for granted? I do. I depend on it to get me through the day and do all that is scheduled and needed. Yesterday, my body didn’t do that for me. I experienced two syncopal episodes (fainting) close together with weakness, sweating, disorientation. Surgery I had prepared for was cancelled. After…

Last night as I dreamed, my dream was so nebulous as I was trying to pinpoint and explain God in a sentence and each effort produced a vacuum of empty space where God was not. Every phrase was like mist dissipating revealing nothingness. This morning my heart felt so heavy. Reading Genesis 35 added to…

I can’t help but wonder in reading Genesis 34 what would have happened if Jacob had turned to God to ask for His help when his daughter, Dinah, was raped. The rapist Shechem, son of Hamor who was the ruler of that area, kept Dinah and spoke tenderly to her. And Shechem said to his…

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13. In Genesis 33 Jacob finally reunites with Esau. Seeing him with 400 men riding toward him, Jacob divided his wives and children behind him. He had no idea…

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8. And dance! Let the barriers that prevent your heart opening to God come tumbling down and let His love fill you and lift you up in hope…hope in a God who loves you and is merciful…

As I was reading my Bible this morning, my eyes were drawn to the beautiful morning light that I can tell is changing with the changing of the seasons; I can hear the insistent cawing of the grackles in the front, the softer trill of the birds in the back and everything is alive with…

After reading Genesis 30 and praying this morning, I couldn’t help but think about the incredible images we are seeing from the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope. As beautiful as the images we could not imagine without their aid are, my favorite image is of our beautiful planet suspended in inky darkness…

This morning in our Prayer and Practices group after praying for concerns in the world and for each other through those trials, we talked about waiting. We shared times we have waited for answers, many times for decades, and how we handled the many emotions that waiting for years can generate. Waiting isn’t easy. I…

In reading Genesis 28 I was drawn to Esau. Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and…