​PRACTICE RELEASING

This post was originally intended as our Christmas Card message at the end of 2020. I intentionally chose a neutral design because I figured I wouldn’t really get them mailed until January 2021, however, they didn’t arrive in our friends and families mailboxes until August of 2021. It’s hard to say why I was so delinquent in sending them. I think part of the problem was a growing temptation to be a hermit crab in these tumultuous and grievous times. It’s difficult to muster the courage to live the words I wrote at the end of 2020 and yet, here they are all the same. It seems that the world is just as changed as before. Although there was this grasp for the hope of 2021, it has seemed to be more of the same. I guess it all depends on what you are putting your hope in. If I put my hope is feeling different or people being nicer or circumstances looking up, 2021 has more than disappointed. However, if I choose to put my hope in something like the unchanging nature of a Holy God, it is a far more stable reality than any I pretend isn’t as bad as it looks. This is an honest place as well as a safe place. 
 
There has been such anticipation in concluding this last year, as if all the world’s troubles would just disappear on Jan. 1st. While none of us were probably quite that naïve, I know there seemed to be a common thread of hope that 2021 would be vastly different, and yet…..

As humans, we have been tested and tempted; found failing and stirred to rise. The trouble in the world is ultimately a trouble with the human heart. At its’s very root, the human condition has some pretty low lows, but our hope for the future isn’t in humankind although it is, at its foundation, connected to humankind. We need each other to not give up so that we can, as many as possible, continue walking toward the Hope of the world. My family and I are convinced it is only found in Christ Jesus and any reason to hope really has no verification except through the fact that He was killed and rose from the dead, proving Him to be the Christ. You may not agree but in solidarity with keeping hope alive, we want you to know that Truth will guide us, and Love will be our hallmark. We are committed to traveling with you, together. May you find what really matters in life are the things that make it worth living. May you reach out to those in destitution with no hope to help them feel the reality of hope. And may you experience the evidence of a God that Loves through the ability to see Him at work in changing people – real change, lifting us from the low of lows to a place of restoration that can’t be denied. May we ever strive to see the Truth that we are all made in the Image of God who will bring Justice to the world beyond our efforts. May you find reservoirs of Love to call others into His Light and courage to respond with action to those in deep need, for this is Right, Just and Good. ​