Tag: grace

  • An Exhortation from Pastor Fred

    The late Pastor Fred once counseled a younger pastor who was deeply frustrated with his people in our community who could never seem to “get it together”. “Why don’t you just love them like the father they never had?!” The love of the Father gives us an identity, a calling, and a reason not to…

  • Fear and Grace

    Fear and Grace

    [Part 9 in Liz’s story of God’s calling her into inner city behavioral health care] For my undergraduate graduation, my college ministry group gave me a copy of When People are Big, and God is Small by Ed Welch. I took a look at the description on the back cover, which talks about people-pleasing and…

  • Prayer and Umbrellas

    Prayer and Umbrellas

    [Part 6: After a brief break while transitioning, I’ve resumed the narrative of God’s calling me into counseling in an urban setting as part of a health care team. The first five parts covered June 2010 through October 2012. This entry takes us up to November 2012. Six or seven more installments, and the story…

  • Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace

    Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace

    [Originally written for the ESN blog.] In watching people die, I have come to better appreciate how much meaning people attach to a body and how death has a way of revealing our most elemental beliefs about what remains. I have talked to patients in their final moments, have shoved long needles into pulseless vessels,…

  • I am not above the charity of God

    I was re-reading one of my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz, when the following excerpt hit me hard.  At the end, there is a stunning quote worth meditating on. For a very long time, I could not understand why some people have no trouble accepting the grace of God while others experience immense difficulty.  I counted…

  • Grace!

    I grew up with a mother who never took a gift… just half of an exchange.  I remember watching, with horrified amusement, a lady try to give my mom a bag of mangoes.  My mom chased her down and literally threw the bag into the open window of the car as it drove away.  My…