New

Yesterday Katherine and I attended the particularization service of a new church work in Philadelphia. ‘Particularization’ refers to the official ‘becoming’ of a church within our denomination. It isn’t that it wasn’t a church before the ceremony – but it wasn’t a recognized ‘particular’ church until then. The pastor is a friend I graduated from seminary with. We were examined for ordination on the same day in South Florida. There is a lot of history.

The service was beautiful – the music, the liturgy, the testimonies and the messages – they all came together and wove a tapestry of joy and promise for the future. In a particularization service it all happens. The people officially become the church’s first Members. The minister officially becomes the church’s first Pastor, and the leaders officially become the church’s first Elders. It is like being in a birthing room as a baby is born.

I have to confess that it isn’t a stretch for me to lose sight of how powerfully transformational it is for someone to become a Christ-follower. Perhaps this is a reflection of how my faith sometimes lags. I’m no different from the next believer – believe me, there are dry times – powerless times – times when what I know in my brain isn’t firing with my heart.

Paul says that when someone begins to follow Jesus (he calls it being ‘in Christ’), they become new creations. He continues to say that ‘the old has passed and the new has come’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). It isn’t second-hand stuff for an individual to trust Christ. God doesn’t replace heart parts – He gives us a whole new shooting match.

And when it happens, somehow, intuitively and instinctively, we know it, don’t we? We know that God has done something – that He has forgiven us and filled us with Himself. We don’t quite understand it, but we know it. We know that regardless of what we were and did in our past lives, inside, now, we are new.

Just like that church. It wasn’t a re-plant – it was a newborn. And in Christ, so are you – on the day you realized that following Him was your only hope – and today – and tomorrow.

As I write Katherine and I are in the throes of finding a good used car for our oldest daughter who is about to graduate from high school. In the fall she will attend college. She has turned in a few job applications. Life for her – and for us – is changing – much of her existence will be on the road.

In searching for the ‘perfect’ car you hope for the least damage and the absence of disgusting air freshener scents. Auto dealers use all kinds of terms to describe these vehicles, but, come on – when all is said and done, whether ‘used’ or ‘pre-owned,’ the bottom line is that someone else, or multiples of people, sat in that particular car – it was theirs before it was yours.

In reflecting on all this I realized that a reason I sometimes become dry in my faith is because I don’t witness or expect new things in the Christian landscape – new churches – new creations – new beginnings, etc. I can get so lost in the minutia of things about the Faith that I lose my bearings regarding its transformational power.

It would be one thing if it was only a matter of forgetting how beautiful conversion is – but it is more than that. To lose sight of the transformational power of the Gospel is to lose hope – to lose hope that a marriage can be restored, a sinner forgiven or a wayward child welcomed home.

Yesterday I was reminded that the One who said, ‘I make all things new’ has and continues to make good on His word. I needed to be reminded of that – and I suspect that you do to.

peace.

 

Who Do You Run To (and what do you say when you get there)?

For some reason the suicide death of DC Madame Deborah Jean Palfrey has left an impact – one I mentioned in the pulpit on Sunday morning – I was struck by how in the end, all the ‘success,’ power, public acclaim and money failed her. Since that time it has been revealed that she left a note to her mom and sister. Sadly, her note was a mere explanation as to why she would take her life.

With tragic logic she explained that she needed to end her life because the alternative was “only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman.”

Yesterday I sent out a letter to a young man who just turned 16. His mother (her name is Carmen and his name is Daniel - both are pictured below) asked for words from people she trusted with the hope that together would provide what she termed his ‘Circle of Wisdom.’ She is an amazing single Mom and has raised a fine boy who now enters into early manhood, a Christ-follower with gifts, personality and a foundation that will take him far.

In the letter I sent I wrote these words:

The first thing I want to sort of etch on your mind and heart, something for you to never forget and always return to, is that you are valued and adored by God. The moment Jesus died for you He proved, beyond a doubt, that God is willing to give everything up for you. I know that you are going to have moments of doubt and even rebellion in your life. Why? Because you are a human with all the weak places and flaws that all of us possess. So this isn’t for you to have in order to remain perfect – it is for you to cling to because you aren’t. It is the assurance that you will always have the Lord to look to, to run to, to return to and to cling to – that His love is for imperfect, broken and messy people like you and me. Put another way, He will always be there. He will always be there for you, friend. He will never be absent when you call on Him. He will always be ready and eager to receive you, to forgive you, to renew you and to pick you up. I want you to remember this! As a pastor of 25 years I have met too many people who thought that they had gone too far for God to ever want or love them again – but that is simply not true. He will always be there – He adores you – His reach will always be longer than the deepest hole you find yourself in – You are His and His delight is in you.

The question is, when the world crashes in and hope seems dim, who do you run to? And then, when you get there, what do you say?

Following Jesus doesn’t always mean that we will follow close behind – the fact is that we are quite adept at digging holes that cause us to lose sight of our Friend and Savior. Life has a way of catching up to us. Sins bite in and clench tightly. Regrets paralyze and shame enslaves.

I used to live in the prison of guilt – thinking that when I have sinned that is a sure sign that God probably doesn’t like me any more. But I have learned that those moments of discovery – where I realize that I have wandered far from ‘home’ – that those moments are defining ones because they reveal where home is and they determine where I will run when I come to my ‘senses’ (Luke 15:17). If nothing else (though there is much more), the beautiful good news of the Gospel is that in Jesus I have someone to flee to – even if it is just to say, ‘I’m sorry.’

So the issue is not whether or not we will live perfectly in this imperfect world and skin – it is whether or not we enjoy a relationship of love and dependence on the Perfect One whose delight has already been proven with His own life.

peace.
carmen-and-daniel-0013

 

Patchwork

This week was the week to begin to restore our front yard. It is a huge task. My South Florida experience with lawns was no preparation for life in the Mid-Atlantic. The grass in Miami is more like what is known as Centipede Grass – the name tells the story. When a section in the yard dies all you have to do is throw some soil in the ‘hole’ and then water it. Over a period of days the surrounding grass sort of crawls across the uncovered space – within a week or so it is as though the bare spot was never there.

But here in Maryland it is different. The grass (Crab Grass, I believe) grows in clumps. Even the White House lawn, impeccable as it is, is a series of thousands of little clumps of grass that stand alone. When a clump dies it leaves what appears to be a divot from a decent seven iron shot – which means you have to either lay down new sod, or you have to re-seed it and then wait.

Reseeding is more than running the spreader over the lawn – there is a place for that – but not in this case. The problem is that where grass has died the ground is hard. This means that you have to either loosen the dirt, or add some. Then you have to seed it – and in my case, put some weird concoction of seed, fertilizer and accelerator on top of the new or loosened dirt. The hope is that within seven to fourteen days you will have new grass that will take the entire season to grow in (just in time for fall when it will begin to go dormant).

This is our third spring in the north. What I have learned is that there are always bare spots and therefore patchwork is always necessary. The lawn is never ‘there.’

Yesterday, at the end of the day, as I undertook this process it occurred to me that my life is like our yard. I can’t think of a year or a phase in my life when God wasn’t doing some serious patchwork on me.

The Gospel ensures that on earth we never really do arrive – not really (if we did, then what would there to look forward to in heaven?). What God has entrusted into our hearts is a sealed deal – no worries there. But again, there is the reality of that daily patchwork of the Gospel – the reminder that God didn’t rescue us to ignore us – that He really is interested and involved in who we are, where we are headed, how we are formed and what we are all about.

No wonder Jeremiah declares that God’s mercies (or compassions) are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). We need them every morning! I used to read that passage and find great comfort in it – and still do – but I don’t think I ever looked at it backwards, that is, I don’t think I ever considered how desperately and daily I need the very compassion that God never stops distributing.

So don’t despair. You and I will always need patchwork - every day and every year - until we are home with Christ.

Right now our yard looks as though it rained on a bad toilet paper job. The regimen Home Depot suggested (I did it, they helped) is peculiar – and for the time being it looks a bit silly. But it is my yard, and its only hope for repair is if I care enough to do the patchwork it needs – every spring – every year – every time a bare spot opens up. In a few weeks I’ll be the proud father of tender grass shoots only to find soon after that more patchwork is needed elsewhere. This is the nature of life – this is the nature of the life of faith. And yesterday, while the heavens declared God’s glory, those bare spots begged the Gospel.

peace.

 

Grace and the Flower Girl

I performed a wedding yesterday evening (perhaps a cheap excuse I’ll use for a late blog post…). The ceremony took place at a historic church in the city of Baltimore. The church is an old one – stone exterior, bells that announce each half hour to the City, a cemetery behind with headstones that predate the Civil War. The setting could not serve as a lovelier one for a wedding.

A wedding ceremony is a curious event. Family, friends and ‘others’ attend what I have learned to be more than a simple ceremony – in many cases it is pageantry. Each brings a confluence of dynamics. Men and women walk down the aisle almost as though it were a runway in a fashion show. The build-up is obvious – ‘Will the bridesmaids wear their hair up?’ ‘What color will the Bride’s dress be?’ Floral arrangements are scrutinized and gushed over. Old acquaintances greet one another with hugs and kisses. People crane their necks in the pews, scanning the audience.

And then there are the men. I have come to realize that 99% of them don’t want to be there. You can see it in their faces. They are, in a word, bored. Unfortunately I have the bird’s eye view. Don’t fool yourself – the pastor sees everything. While their wives are riveted, guys nod off, look a their watches, and read their PDAs. I’m not judging here – just reporting (not to mention that I am one of those typical guys when not performing the ceremony).

What makes the wedding ‘work’ are the Bride and the Groom – along with their families. It is really all about this ‘first family,’ and that is how it is supposed to be. Think about it – when all is said and done, thirty years after, all the couple will have is pictures (the photographers and videographers will involve another blog along with years of psychotherapy for the pastor who deals with them…). The pictures are largely of the ceremony and the families of the Bride and Groom. The fact is that the friends who attend and sit in the pews are guests – but that ‘first couple’ and their family – they are the ones who are most thrilled with the moment. They are the ones who cling to every word and nuance of the ceremony.

This particular ceremony came with all the ‘stops’ – beautiful music, classily dressed attendants, an exquisite wedding gown, sweet tears and perfect weather. The attendants, along with the preacher (that would be me), and the Groom had entered the sanctuary, and all that stood between the preliminaries and the entrance of the Bride was the flower girls. One was an older girl, but the other was a three or four year old. She was precious and cute as could be. And when she entered, she took over!

Three quarters of the way down the aisle she dropped her basket of rose petals and they went all over the place. Groomsmen, Bridesmaids and her mother dropped to the floor to help collect them. The simple task of picking them up was adorable, loud and the sweetest of distractions. When it was time for her to recess (churchy language for leaving the stage), she took over again, loudly telling her mother that she needed her basket to leave the sanctuary. Needless to say, all loved this girl they didn’t know.

Actually it humanized an otherwise perfect event, and served as the most precious of reminders, that nothing on this side of heaven is perfect. In fact, down the road, it won’t be the pastor’s words people remember, or the length of the Bride’s gown, or the musical selections. It will be that little girl’s improv performance and the sweet ‘music’ she added to an otherwise ‘perfect’ ceremony.

This is the way Grace really works. It is beautiful because of the reason it exists in the first place: scars on a Savior’s hands, wounds in a healed relationship – all serve as watermarks in a community that was flooded, and then came together and then grew stronger. Grace is redemptive and it exposes the mess it takes us through – and somehow it makes even the mess something we would not trade if we could. I can’t help but think that this was the enduring message of Jacob’s perpetual limp - his abiding reminder of God’s transforming grace in his most painful moment of self-realization (Hebrews 11:21).

I’m certain that no one would plan on a three year old Flower Girl dropping a basket of rose petals three quarters of the way down the aisle of a perfect wedding ceremony – but I am equally certain that none who witnessed the event would wish it never happened. Perfection is elusive – Grace is magnificent.

peace.

 

A New Way of Seeing

Last week I posted pictures of Cherry Blossoms taken while driving (literally) through Washington DC with Katherine. They are famously situated largely around the Washington Monument in our nation’s capitol. Having been raised in South Florida I have had little experience with the seasons. But having now experienced two winters in Maryland (relatively mild by most standards) we have come to appreciate them.

This was driven home to me this afternoon when I returned to the house from the office, only to find one of our daughters in the front yard, barefooted, and playing ‘fetch’ with our dog (that’s right, our other son). In the thick of winter it is easy to get to a place where you wonder if the gray, the cold and the dark will ever end.

And then spring comes – and with it, flowers, smells, the chatter of birds in the morning, and the sweet noise of children outside: skateboarding, shooting hoops and throwing water balloons. There is even an entire block in neighboring Silver Spring – a DC suburb – that is nothing more than a ‘lawn’ of artificial turf that becomes a communal ‘yard’ in spring – where hundreds of people congregate early evenings to sit with their families, throw the Frisbee, eat ice cream and listen to music. Winter coats are replaced by tank tops. Boots have given way to flip-flops. ‘Inside’ has finally surrendered to ‘Outside.’ In truth, all of spring is lovely - the things of nature and the joy and celebration it brings.

One of our lesser-known doctrines is that of Common Grace. Maybe the best way to put it is that there is no corner of the creation that doesn’t somehow, if not in the slightest of ways, reflect the delight of God. This is not to say that God delights in evil or in tragedy – but that sin has not and will not ever have the power to drown out His ‘voice’ from the creation. This is why we can read a poem, listen to a musical offering, marvel at stunning architecture, or admire a painting – that have no overt Christian theme – but display beauty – and in them detect God’s smile.

Philippians 4:8 - “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”

He doesn’t seem to separate the secular from the spiritual as we often do in church circles. He simply extols the virtue of thinking on ’such things.’

I take this as a challenge to the Church – a challenge to see the world with a whole new set of eyes, believing that as we celebrate the fingerprints of God on everything and every one, we can be relieved of the instinct to condemn or judge and instead be moved to love and celebrate Him in the creation – even if those who bear the marks of His presence can’t see what we know to be true.

This hit me the other day while reading Elie Wiesel’s short work, Night. It is one of the most disturbing, yet insightful descriptions in print of the Nazi Concentration Camp experience for Holocaust Jews. What struck me was an observation he made at Auschwitz (perhaps the most famous of the death camps). Wiesel was a boy at the time and he spoke of a morning in which, along with fellow prisoners, he was marched out to work. As he and the others were taken to their daily routines – led through that ghastly camp – he detected something he recognized – he smelled the aroma of spring as it blew through.

I dog-eared the page, highlighted the sentence, and then smiled and thanked God that His delight really can’t be thwarted.

peace.

 

Spring Break!

I am on a blog Spring Break - Unfinished1 will continue this Friday/Saturday, with a new format of sorts - On Friday/Saturday Unfinished1 will post, and then on Monday a discussion paragraph will follow for a stream of comments on the practical implications of the Friday/Saturday post.

Enjoy the Cherry Blossoms (taken in Washington DC).

peace.

 

The Snowball Stand

I’m still feeling Easter. For us it was a beautiful day of worship – music, the Word, liturgy, testimony, message – it was all there – a sweet day of celebration.

This may be due to having participated in an inordinate number of funerals in recent months. They have taken us from Miami to New York and back to Greater Baltimore. They have involved dear friends, my own immediate family, and new friends who have welcomed us into their circle of grief and love.

Each service is deeply personal. Unique families and friends gather to grieve, embrace, weep and remember. They bring with them their own experiences and stories along with their secrets. In death a vacuum was created by the loss of someone they loved, and love is revisited by those who remain.

The Resurrection is the true underlining reality that drives these services – the thing that enables me to show up in the first place – that cataclysmic event in which Jesus authenticated everything He and the prophets had promised, and the disciples celebrated and proclaimed in its wake – that for those who are in Christ, that is for those who have fled to Him in faith, even though they will one day die, will also live with Him in the new heaven and the new earth – forever.

I offered this at a recent funeral:

“Jesus, the Son of God, came in human skin, lived with the broken things of this world, suffered all that we do – and then, in the presence of His mother on earth and His Father in heaven, at the young age of 33, He died – three days later, He conquered sin’s most chilling consequence – the grave.

All this to fulfill the hope and the promise that all that the creation was intended to be it would once again become.”

Looking forward to heaven is rooted in the Resurrection – we’ll be there because its reality is already within the hearts of those who hide in Jesus.

Which takes me to this snowball stand in our area here in Maryland – Actually most communities have one – it is a community thing in the state. Each spring they open and remain open through early fall. Having grown up in South Florida my experience with snowballs was that they were always available because it was always hot (Translation: they were great but we probably didn’t appreciate them so much.). Here, you look forward to them. They come in all flavors, some topped with marshmallow, others on cones.

But it isn’t so much the snowballs – it is the gathering of people who buy them and then sit around this huge open green space with massive oaks and maples providing shade, if needed – some on fallen tree stumps and others on benches. Children run around the yard, cars come and go and Young People gather.

I don’t know – it makes me wonder if that is how it will be when we arrive Home.

peace.

 

Good

Today we celebrated the death of Jesus Christ on what is known on the church calendar to be ‘Good Friday.’  By any other measure celebrating a death would seem morbid at best, and at worst, chillingly insensitive.  But we celebrate – because for Christ-followers, Jesus’ death is core and decisive when it comes to the forgiveness of sins.

The sacrifices of the Old Testament were what the Apostle Paul refers to as ‘shadows’ – they reflected something, but didn’t reveal everything – because they were intended to be short-lived, temporary violences (for those who can’t find this in their dictionaries, you caught me - I made this word up!) to mollify the wrath of God for a season – but not forever.  They were shadows – they were pointing to something greater – actually, someone greater – they were aiming at Jesus.

For all the wild speculations of ‘last things’ in the New Testament book of Revelation, careful inspection reveals that the centerpiece of John’s inspired writing is not so much Christ’s return, but His death:

“And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God fro0m every tribe and language and people and nation.’” (Revelation 5:9)

Good Friday is ‘good’ because it marks the extreme to which God would go to secure our Redemption – the extent of which He would sacrifice His own Son.  Participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (‘Communion,’ or ‘Eucharist’) is what the bible refers to as a proclamation (1 Corinthians 11) – a proclamation that serves to remind us and announce to the world Jesus’ death – ‘until he comes.’  ’Until he comes’ we can cling to His sacrifice as one that satisfied God’s wrath toward us - once and forever.  ’Until he comes’ we can rest in the reality of the forgiveness of sin.  It blows me away when I consider that this is a rest-of-my-life thing.

This morning we interred our Dad, and our Mom’s husband – Leo Khandjian.  Dad was a Christ-follower of the most humble kind.  God graced us with this extraordinary man.  As with our Mother, Dad lived the Gospel.  And we, their children, are the beneficiaries.

Words cannot really capture how precious that small service was at Arlington National Cemetery earlier today – watching Mom place her husband of 52 years into the small ‘drawer’ that will one day contain her remains as well, speaking the scriptures, witnessing her tears and the tears of my wife and our daughters, sharing the ‘moment’ with a friend who has stood beside us in this, standing in for siblings and grandchildren who were there with us, in spirit, praying together.

It was a cold, windy day, but somehow it was the good-ness of Good Friday that seemed to cut through the moment – and into our hearts.  We were sad, but we weren’t afraid.  Jesus had already been where Dad has recently gone - by His Resurrection He rendered the Grave to be safe for pilgrims like Dad who loved Christ and passed there in their journey towards home.

Indeed, this is Good News.

peace.

  

 

Still Wet Hands

Last Sunday we had an infant baptism – one of my favorite things to do as a pastor.  I know, I know - not everyone agrees that we should baptize infants, but that is what we do - and I love it.  There is something sweet about a little baby being held before a congregation of people - Young, Old, Black, White, Asian, Hispanic - you name it - here you are - holding this little precious one with all eyes on him (this week it was a ‘him’).  Everyone is disarmed by that baby’s presence.

As the one holding the child I feel a bit like Rafiki, the Ape, holding up, Simba, the son of Mufasa, the reigning Lion King (in the beautiful Disney movie that bears that name) before the Animal Kingdom as it celebrates its future leader.  As a Community we celebrate that child - almost as though it belongs to each of us – and in a sense he does.

This was driven home to me in what followed as one of our pastors began to pray – because before, during and after he prayed I realized that my hand was still wet from having scooped water out of a bowl to splash on the child’s head.  I wouldn’t have noticed if people weren’t walking past me – but as they did I felt the water chill on my hands – kind of the way you catch a whiff of an over-perfumed woman or a man who never learned that bottles of aftershave are designed to be emptied over the course of time rather than all in one morning.

Those still-wet-hands reminded me of how connected in the Community of Christ we really are.  My hands felt cooler because there were other people in the room passing by in close proximity, and they were wet because there was a baby there as well – his head still moist due to his baptism before that Community.  There was no escaping one another.  We had been tied together in this bond of intimate sacrament sharing.

And I love that – that we are not in this ‘thing’ alone – that regardless of our propensities to hide within the solitude of self, in Christ we belong to a narrative larger than ourselves.  The Scriptures use words and phrases like, ‘body,’ ‘priesthood,’ ‘people’ – the list goes on, really.  In a baptism we are reminded that we are all over one another in some form or another – because in Christ – we are.

The truth is that this isn’t my ‘way’ – In spite of the reality of my calling, intimate crowds make me uneasy and my instinct is to hide.  But the Gospel won’t have anything to do with a self-centered, disconnected, distant religious expression.  We are the beneficiaries of a Redeemer who entered our broken community so that we could be citizens in His beautiful one.  This means that this flawed, imperfect and always struggling community called the Church is meant to do more than give us friends – it is the one physical expression of the presence of Christ on a planet filled with people who desperately need to catch His aroma of Grace.  We are not alone – and this means we can’t live unto ourselves.

peace.

 

Hiding but not Pretending

Last week I was headed to St. Louis for a denominational meeting, but before leaving for the airport dear friends called and informed me that their lives had been tragically interrupted by the sudden and unexpected death of a young family member – so instead, I took a train to NYC.

Needless to say, there was no room for make-believe platitudes.  I have learned in times like this that the answer to the question, ‘Why?’ is never ‘Because…’

One of my favorite books comes from a present-day Theologian named Nicholas Wolterstorff.  Though I own most of his works my native intelligence rarely successfully wraps its brain around his deep writings.  But one book stands out (the book I have most widely handed out and cited throughout my ministry) – one he wrote in the shadow of his own 25 year-old son’s unexpected death in a mountain climbing accident.  The book stands out because it offers no platitudes and no quick fixes – only a father’s broken heart – a dad who loves Christ but who doesn’t understand why he was robbed of his son.  And in that time of reflection (a reflecting that I suspect will continue until they are reunited in the new heaven), he concluded that the Gospel is the recurring story of a God who endlessly gives Himself to us.

He writes this:

“…great mystery: to redeem our brokenness and lovelessness the God who suffers with us did not strike some mighty blow of power but sent his beloved son to suffer like us, through his suffering to redeem us from suffering and evil.

Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.” 

Lament for a Son, p. 81, Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987 

There is something in the common Christian consciousness that seems to thirst for ready-made solutions for every conceivable painful event – a one-size-fits-all response packet – sort of like telemarketers armed with questions for each attempted rejection by their defenseless victims on the other line.  I can only assume that we believe that if we have an answer when the effects of our fallen world hit us personally that we won’t hurt so deeply.  Yet the false presumptions of being ‘safe’ from the deep hurts of life seem proportionate to the devastation we feel when they inevitably come.

In thinking on this I was reminded of that Seinfeld episode where the main characters believed they could overcome their stresses by saying, ‘Serenity now.’  However by the end of the show they were shouting these words – almost attempting to command themselves to manufacture a peace they didn’t really have.

Telling ourselves that we can ‘handle it,’ or that ‘it isn’t so bad’ only either makes the Faith lack credibility to an already skeptical world, or it gives the appearance of an impossible-to-please God to those within the Church who honestly struggle with the broken things in their lives.

Hey, listen – it is the most natural thing in the world to dread pain’s force – but here is the thing – artificial attempts to deny its potency through make-believe strength is really a denial of God’s passion for us in our brokenness.  It is a preemptive strike against the Gospel – the unwillingness to accept that our world is wounded, that at times it will damage us personally, and that God loves us even when we can’t see it, don’t believe it, don’t accept it, and grieve it – yet honestly accept that every sinew of its dark force injures us.

And there is something so refreshingly honest and sweet about a Christian who loves Jesus and at the same time embraces the truth of his or her sorrows.  It is not only honest, but it comes with its own healing as well.

My friends are going to make it – I’m confident of this – they are not pretending, but right now they are hiding – in their God (Psalm 91) – I think that is a good thing.

peace.