Maybe it's the summer heat that has overwhelmed the Gulf Coast, and the thought of 100 degree weather in the forecast. Perhaps it was the news that the mother of one of the youth I had in youth group twenty years ago cancer diagnosis has just caught us off~guard. There just seems to be this need for things to lighten up.

As I listened to the husband of one the teachers killed at the high school shooting in Santa Fe, he shared that the night before he and his wife were planning his funeral. He has a life-limiting lung disease, and the news was not good. So the two spent the evening making plans for his ssrvice. Little did they realize she would be killed the next day.

i guess what I am thinking about at this point is kindness. Why at this juncture of life? Why during these circumstances?

It is kindness that allows for peace. Kindmess seems to be the expression of human grace towards one another. It was my coworker this morning who realized I was really struggling to read the small letters on a report, while commenting, "Just give it time to heal. It will be fine."

It is the pat on the back I saw someone give in line at the gas station this morning when a stranger walked in with his Rockets shirt, and the words, "Maybe next year."

While we are reminded to express kindness to the poor, I recognize that poverty comes in many expressions. Poor in spirit. The poor that populate our city streets. The poor in hope who have been left hopeless. Those who are mourning the loss of loved ones. The person stuck in traffic when their AC is no longer working and they are left to sit in 100 degree heat.

Kindness, like grace, is free, and is something we are all capable of sharing. It is that first step in making a bad situation better. It is allowing for someone's story to be told in a room full of people. The bottle of cold water handed to the person who is hot and thirsty. It is as simple as saying, "It will be okay."

Kindness is just one example of what we can provide to and for others, as an expression of God's presence to others.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2018
​

An escalator can never break, it simply becomes stairs.

I think we all realize that, but what if the thing that is broken is us?  How then do we describe ourselves?

Jesus gives us the complete example of what it means to be broken.  He was broken on the cross.  Before a large crowd, in front of his mother, and among those that he had walked with.  He was broken.

Each day there are those around us who are living their life, broken.  There are those with broken hearts, broken minds, broken bodies, broken spirits and broken relationships.

I struggle with the idea that Jesus invites us to live in our brokenness.  It is as if he invites us to accept our own brokenness, just as he did the brokenness of the cross.  

I have known people who live out their faith in amazing ways, by talking about their brokenness, and how that brokenness changed them.  Years ago while talking to a man who had survived a terrible drug addiction who was now helping others become sober, I asked him, "What would you change in your life if you could?"

His response?  "Absolutely nothing."

He realized that because of his own addiction and recovery, his own brokenness had made it possible for him to help others because he knew that brokenness "first hand."

Jesus does not ask us to reject our brokenness, but to accept it, and to ask God to help us make something of it.   It is through this acceptance that God finds a way to take us to a new place, where a new life is waiting, and where we can become stronger.  Not just stronger for ourselves, but for others.

That is the beauty to turning our mourning into dancing, and our sorrows into joy, while taking that which broke us, and living beyond.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

This week during my visits, one of my hospice patients took his hand, placed it on his chest, pointing to his heart shared, "Jesus is in here."

He then took his hand and placed it on my chest and shared, "And Jesus is in here."

The experience was both humbling and sacred.

So often when I talk with people about their faith, I will often ask, "Where were you, and how old were you the first time you felt, or recognized, God being present?"

All of us can recall our first "puppy love" experience, or the time we experienced loss. Love, grief, happy, excitement, being afraid, are just a few examples of experiences or emotions we can generally recall when asked about, as far as first times felt. When was it in your life when YOU encountered God for the first time?

​For me, I have had to think about this. I grew up with religious people. My grandfather was a pastor. My dad directed a church choir. We lived next door to a church a number of years. My first grade teacher was my pastor's wife. My dad and his brothers often sang hymns, and my great grandmother would sit on her front sun porch every afternoon, read her Bible, and pray, sometimes even aloud as I quietly napped in the next room.

You might say I have never "not known" about God or who Jesus is my whole life. It wasn't really until some events happened in my teens that I realized that God wasn't just someone we talked and prayed about. God was also someone I needed to have a relationship with.

Just like meeting a person for the first time, there existed a "getting to know you phase."

While God has known each of us our entire lives, even while we were being "knit in our mother's womb," we haven't been so focused.

A relationship exists when two people take the time to get to know one another. Our experience with God is very much the same way.

I laughed out loud a few years ago watching a movie. The main character moved to a new town. A person who the character met began asking questions about her. "Do you have a husband? Are you married?" and then the most important, "And have you found Jesus?"

After a few moments of silence, the main character turns to her and says, "I didn't know he was missing."

I chuckled. I laughed out loud because I have met folks who ask that question, and I have certainly met people who would respond exactly the way the character did!

The relationship with God is even one that an atheist can explain. In my profession I have encountered folks who proclaim to be atheists. When they meet me, they will often throw up walls and proclaim that I won't change them. I have learned these folks are often more likely to have a relationship with God than not. It's often easier to say, "I don't believe," rather than try to explain a relationship they struggle to understand. Often I comment, "No worries here. Atheism is your faith, and that is how I will treat it."

It makes people stop and think. I go on, "You have really thought about this, and you have had to be lead to a place where you deny the existence of God. That is your journey, and your choice."

So often people get stuck on the idea that someone could even say they are an atheist. For me, it is another opportunity to hear someone's faith journey. You see, like the rainbow that exists in a cloudless sky, God is always present, even in places you don't expect, or in ways you can't imagine. For some of us, having a relationship with God means that you must proclaim to believe in someone you have never seen.

In the darkness of our mother's womb, in the dawn of a new day, the setting of the sun, or in the question of whether we have found Jesus, the God of all creation simply waits for us to ask, "Are you there?"

Whether we are ready or not, or whether we really believe or not, God is always responding, "Yes."

It is up to us then to begin talking.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" ​
~ Luke 23:46
​

For most of us, the idea of "moving on" from something means that we must leave something behind.  Often what we fail to realize is that the act of moving on means that we are in motion.  

This afternoon I spent time with a man who talked at great length about having "unfinished business."  As he shared, I realized that much of what he focused upon was letting go of hurts, and to allow grace to enter in.  "I just can't seem to let go," was shared more than once.

I understand.  Even Jesus on the cross related to God that those who had caused him so much pain, even nailing him to a cross, needed to be forgiven so that Jesus might find a way to be able to give himself, his spirit, over to God.

It is something that we all know a little bit about.  Asking for forgiveness and being forgiven are acts of daily living, but also, are the very things that help to build our relationship with God.

As the man continued, he finally admitted, "I simply must let this go."  

I described God's forgiveness as a "man with amnesia."  When we are able to ask for forgiveness, or to allow forgiveness to enter, we are to forget it, just as God forgives us.  It is not to be available for future use, or to hold us back.  When we are finally able to let go, then we are able to move forward.

For him, it meant that he was able to find some peace, and concentrate on the conversations he wants to have with family and friends in his final days.  

Hoping we find the freedom to move forward in our lives while we remain in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

Last evening I stopped along the highway at Santa Fe High School where ten people were killed last Friday. As I walked up to the memorial that has been created, a small group was off to the side praying. As I stood there, looking at the crosses, each with a name of a person who was killed, I began to hear these words, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Those of us present began to join those praying. From the other side of the display, out to the roadway, and among people just arriving the prayer grew in strength as others joined our voices.

They say the light from a single candle can light up an entire room, and that the light of God cannot be overcome by the darkness, even when the darkness seems to be surrounding us.

There was peace. There were still tears. There was love.

I am reminded that our relationship with God was designed to be simple. Just as a parent knows the voice of their own child, even when that voice is in a crowd, God knows each of us just like this.

The presence of strangers in a field among these markers served as a reminder for me that we also know one another's voice when we join together in saying these words. It is how I imagine our home in heaven, where we all will know one another, but in a place where all the things that divide us will no longer exist.

For just a moment last night I forgot that we were strangers, and when that happened, there we found God's reminder that "on earth, as it is in heaven," is possible always. Even now among strangers, and those who, in the light of God, cannot be overcome by the darkness that tried to surround us.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

It rained yesterday. I think most of us were waiting for the heavens to open to bring the rain to wash over us. As it poured, lightening raced across the sky, and thunder shook us.

​The rain is God's way of caring for our land, and is a welcomed change after weeks of surprisingly dry heat. I noticed that parts of our yard had begun to crack, and grass struggled to remain green.

I wish there was a way to notice when others were spiritually dry. And if so, a way that we might help without sounding like a streetside religious orator.

When I was attending Indiana University, there was a man that would often stand near Dunn Meadow, often condemning, rather than nurturing, those that passed by.

It turned into shouting matches at times, with anything but the love of God being realized.

Like the land, we all find times when we need cared for. The problem is knowing when, and then allowing it to happen.

The dry land cracks and opens up to capture moisture. On the other hand, those who are spiritually dry, often walk away.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me," can also be read, "Surely goodness and mercy will pursue after me." The word for follow after and pursue after is the same word.

Realizing this, when I discover that I seem to be feeling a little spiritually dehydrated, I just remember that even God cares enough for the field, and God feels the same, if not more, about each of us.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

We seem to be wandering. When I was a youth I used to love discovering a new grape vine circling a tree. Often my friends and I would cut, and then see how far we could swing out. Sometimes the trip would take us out over a small valley, or a steep hill. If the vine were strong enough, and secure, we could soar out over a great distance. But, if it weren't securely fastened to the canopy of the tree, the result would mean a tumble that could be more than just a little frightening.

It is just something that we did as young people. As we grew "older and wiser," we learned that swinging out on an unknown vine, over a steep valley, was not necessarily the best of ideas.

You might say we were in need of guidance, but experience, and a few hard knocks, taught us a lot.

I know that times have changed. The first time I took my children back through the "hills and hollers" of Southern Indiana where I grew up, I was met with a lot of questions about what I did for fun. Especially when they learned that on a "good day" we might have four television stations.

I learned a lot about growing up through the friendships I encountered, and the neighbors that lined the hills along the winding tar road we lived on.

​Even when we encountered hardships through droughts and heavy snows, as well as, through times when my parents struggled to keep things together, there was an optimism that things would "get better."

Jesus encountered people who knew something about hardships, and wandering for that matter. He understood that times would be difficult and that at some point, the people make poor decisions, have varying levels of faith, and simply experience difficulty.

He reminds us that we need to have "a shepherd." Someone who will lead us to green meadows and places where still water provide for a peaceful place. A shepherd that keeps us safe, while keeping us aware of present, or possible danger.

In our world today, there just seems to be so much chaos and pain. I wish I could communicate the words and follow it up with the actions to ensure that things will "get better."

The Psalmist in the 23rd Psalm reminds us that "surely goodness and mercy shall follow us." Our need for that promise to be made whole relies upon our ability to allow the living Christ, the good Shepherd, to lead in our wanderings. To provide hope, when there seems to be only hopelessness, and to remind us that God will be present with every turn.

"The workers are few," is the reminder to us that we must also be the bearers of hope, even when we find that we are wandering. It is our ability to be present for one another, among the fields, the hills and the hollers. In dark valleys and times of trouble, we are still called, because hope will always remain as long as there are those who are hopeful.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018
​

For those of us who live in and near the Santa Fe, Texas community, this week has been surrounded by tragedy. The unexpected shooting and deaths at the Santa Fe High School has left us numb and filled with so many questions.

​While today is Pentecost Sunday, the day that we rememeber the ushering in of God's Holy Spirit, where Jesus reminds us that in His absence, a "Great Comforter" will come, there is difficulty in finding comfort in anything that has happened.

This morning I awoke and I began to look at the news, there at the top of the page was another photo of the young man who brought tragedy to our community.

For some reason when there is death like this, I am reminded that Jesus was publicly murdered, that a man betrayed him, and that there were so many factors involved.

While we have scripture to relate to us God's plan to send a Savior into the world so that we all may know eternal life, I cannot believe that the deaths of young people and their teachers is remotely God's plan.

​What has helped me to move forward is realizing that we are the people living beyond Eastertime, the resurrection, and do have the Spirit of a loving God, surrounding us.

​As I spoke to one of the folks I work with at hospice Friday after leaving the Santa Fe Junior High where I had sat with some of the victims of the attack, I shared that in our line of work, we see people of all ages at the end of life. We see people who have lived long lives, and lives that seem to be cut too short.

For any of us, the struggle of letting go and moving forward into an unknown, while hoping that something of us will remain, is something we all hope for.

​I am reminded that at the end of our life both faith and hope will end, love will remain. Love is eternal. Love comes from God and returns to God. When we die, we will lose everything that life gave us, except for love. The love with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us. It is the Divine, indestructible core of our being. This love not only will remain, but is will bear fruit from generation to generation.

We are reminded, "Don't let your heart be troubled. The love of God that dwells in my heart will come to YOU and offer YOU consolation and comfort."

I am reminded that Easter, the resurrection and the arrival of the Great Comforter began with a last breath. May the last breath of those whom we lost this week in Santa Fe be the beginning of something brought out of the love of those we have lost.

Stay in God's grip!

​G. Todd Williams (c) 2018
​

​

While I strive to share posts that provide encouragement, and to remind others to "Stay in God's grip!" Today my life has been forever changed...
​

I have been trying to compartmentalize everything that occurred today.


This morning after leaving my home, I had decided to take Highway 6 to Missouri City / Sugar Land where my first patient visits were today.


It was one thing seeing a SWAT Team vehicle on 646, sirens blaring, followed by an ambulance and several other emergency vehicles, it was another to find that I was in a long line of cars stopped on the highway near Santa Fe High School.


As I sat on the highway, the radio announcer shared there was an active shooter. Soon, our daughter Emily sent me a text. Suddenly I realized I was stopped on the highway because the crime scene was growing and traffic had been stopped. I was within a mile of the school, looking behind, and realizing, that they were diverting traffic away from the area.


Thirty minutes went by, and then another fifteen minutes. I noticed parents walking past me, and then being directed back. The police who had stopped the traffic were now going from car to car, asking where those of us who ended up within the blocked area were heading, so that they could then direct which way to go.


When the sheriff's deputy had me roll down my window, he asked, "Are you a parent?"


I replied, "No, I'm a hospice chaplain on my way to visit a patient."


He then looked at me and said, "We could sure use you at the Junior High."


I didn't hesitate. I said, "Sure, where do I need to go."


He gave me the name of an officer, and directed me off the road, and crossed traffic.


My boss would share later today, "God had a divine plan." What's the chance of a hospice chaplain being in a line of cars in front of a school where death seemed to be everywhere?


When I got to the school, I saw a number of emergency vehicles. One had the words, "Mass Casualty Vehicle" on the side. I thought, "This is awful."


I walked past a line of parents, frantically looking at their phones, texting, and making calls. I saw young people of various ages, leaving their schools, either from the junior high, or the elementary across the street.


An officer walked me past the parents, past more officers, and into the front office of the junior high where parents were waiting. I was taken into another office, where a mother was sitting, crying. I introduced myself, and I asked about her child, "My daughter was hit in the leg. That's all I know. I haven't seen her yet. I'm waiting on them to get my other daughter from the junior high and then I need to get my other daughter from the elementary."


I found myself saying, "She will be okay."


After a few minutes that just seemed to last forever, I offered to walk across the street with her to get her daughter from the elementary so that they could get on their way to UTMB where the daughter would be treated. As we walked she said, "I can't believe I took my daughter's phone away from her. She was grounded of her phone. What if something more would have happened? What if she wanted to call me as she was dying to talk to me?"


I looked at her and said, "You did what most parents do. You parent. And taking away a cell phone is what normal parents do. You had no idea this was going to happen. You were being a good parent."


She looked at me. She got where I was coming from.


It crossed my mind that this look I have seen before. It's the look that people get when they know that they simply don't have control of anything.


We made our way to the elementary. She grabbed her daughter, and just hugged her. Her other daughter who had followed us from the junior high was quiet until she saw her sister. "Did you hear?"


"Yes, we all have. Are you okay?" she asked.


The other daughter said, "Yes."


I walked to where a vehicle was waiting to escort the family to the hospital. She hugged me and thanked me for "being there."


I made my way back through the series of stops and next I found myself sitting with the custodian who's words, "Police! Police! Police!" were first heard over the walkie talkie that she carried on her belt when the gunshots began.


The small framed, Hispanic woman, has worked for the school system for seventeen years. She shared that just after 7:30 am this morning the students were in their classes. She was doing her normal duties when she noticed a student wearing a black coat and black hat. She said, "I thought he looked out of place."


She said she was about to say something to him, but something inside her caused her to stop. She said, "He turned and looked back three times."


She said the next thing she heard was the loud "bang" of a gun being fired. She immediately grabbed her walkie talkie, calling for police and began to ran. "I never knew I could run so fast."


She later talked of how all these kids are "like my own children." And then, the reality that the children that she cared for, she ran from, rather than turning to help. "What kind of mother abandons her children?"


I stopped her, and reminded her that she did what most of us would do in that situation. I continued to hug her as she shared, and just kept saying, "You are safe now. You did all that you could."


I'm not sure any of us, given the therapeutic "fight or flight" response wouldn't do just the same.


When her daughter arrived to pick her up, it was obvious that she was grateful to see her mother and to hold her.


It was painful to sit and listen, as names of students began to circulate, and as teachers and staff would enter into the nurse's office, and let their guard down. These are people who discovered their passion for teaching, and now are finding ways to utilize their amazing gifts to confront a national problem that has now entered their classroom.


"Not in my back yard," or "NIMBY" as I have heard over the years, often when it came to the rights of the poor, or those who were working to solve social justice issues has suddenly made it's presence known to my neighbors.


Even as I left the property, a man with a "Make America Great Again" t-shirt, and a gun strapped to his leg picking up a child almost made me puke.


I am angry. I am furious. I am afraid. And I AM TIRED.


Somewhere I'm filing away the images of what I have seen today. The sounds of sirens, the anxious faces, the tears shed, the reality that today we are the sentinels, witnesses of innocence being murdered in the hallways of our schools, and we must DO SOMETHING.

Yesterday I spent part of the day with a woman who recently was diagnosed with a terminal disease. As she shared she commented, "I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of dying."

I think for most of us, if we were honest, feel the same way. It is understandable and nothing to be ashamed of. It is uniquely our own journey. The surrender of self, and all that we work so hard to gain and maintain is all lost in a single last breath.

​To fear dying is among the most related feelings that I hear each day as I visit with patients who are dying. Jesus himself as he prayed alone in the garden hours before his betrayal and death asked God to allow this to pass from him.

​I wish that I could say that I have found the perfect words to share that would help to calm this fear, but I haven't. Even after years of being with people as they are dying, in the end, it all is the same. The difference is how we relate the death to one another, and whether the person died peacefully, or what we often say, "died well."

​Each of us must have the same courage that Jesus did to ask God to overwhelmingly overtake our life, and our dying, so that in death we find the peace that we seek, while trusting in each moment in the process of our dying.

​As we pray for God's presence, now and at the hour of our death, our ability to have complete trust when our time does come, will make the journey to our new life less fearful.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

Since last Friday I have been on a whirlwind adventure. After visiting my hospice patients, I then boarded a plane for Louisville, Kentucky, to attend the commencemet ceremony for Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary where I am about to complete my second term as the Alum Board President. I also managed to see several fellow graduates, attend a number of wonderful worship services, and meet with the Alum Board Executive Committee. Somehow I still had time to quietly rock on a porch swing at a friend's home, and sit and pray in a garden that I spent time in while in seminary. I then managed to board a flight home last evening that was then delayed for several hours in Chicago due to a storm, and make it to bed about two am this morning. The alarm went off at 7 am, and it is back to work today.

This morning as I read through emails and get caught up with things before I head out the door to start another full day, I needed to simply stop and and take a moment to think about some of the highlights.

We forget that even while we seem to be thriving at "break-neck speed," God is still with us.

Over the weekend I encountered real moments with God, even while keeping pace with an impossible schedule filled with expectations.

For so many of us, our pace is nearly impossible to measure. We point to our calendar that consumes us and proclaim success, but when it comes down to our faith journey, the question is whether we can recognize the moments where God overtook us in our own race, and was allowed to lead?

I must admit, I am running on fumes this morning, but I also seem to be overwhelmed by the fact that God has been prsesent and celebrated in so many moments.

It is possible you know... to let God lead while we seem to be running!

Years ago I once was told, "Never plan more than what you have time to pray for."

While I think that remains true, the fact of the matter is, never plan anything unless you can plan to let God go with you.

Real thriving exists when God also flourishes with you as well.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

Between 1996 and 1999 I managed to either see, walk past, or entered the chapel here at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Tonight, almost twenty years after graduating with my Masters of Divinity degree, this place remains a type of "holy vessel," or "sacred space" for me. I hardly was in my room five minutes until I was once again out the door at Laws Lodge where I am staying on campus this weekend, and making my way to visit the chapel.

The structure itself is not some glorious cathedral. When you sit inside it is like staring into the hull of a large wooden boat held into the air by rows of stained-glass windows. Many of which I have sat and stared at for hours upon end while discerning what God was asking of me. I have sang from the balcony, I have preached from its pulpit, I have broken bread with my friends and my family at the altar, and I have prayed some of my most important prayers while sitting in a pew surrounded by swells from the pipe organ. This place is holy. This place is sacred.

Behind the chapel lies the ashes of friends and colleagues, forever reminding me that eternity beckons.

There were days when the steps to the chapel were as steep as the highest mountain. The day I walked with clasmates into this place when one of our own died unexpectedly.

There were days when I was quick to run out the doors after realizing I had forgotten to print out the final version of a paper, and I had to cross the valley to where we were living so that I would make sure that what I turned in was what was being asked of me.

I have no doubt that I have heard the voices of God spoken in this place. I think back to my first Hebrew classes, and one of our discussions on the great I AM noting that God exists always and thus is present always, and that each one of us, made in that image, is one of the many voices that God uses to bring God's message into the world.

I stare at my feet, and I consider removing my shoes, then looking around at the empty sidewalks, flanked by a few lights and think twice. I am a stranger in a strange land, but it is the place I know well enough that even as an aging, middle-aged man, I can close my eyes and point to where things are, even down to where entrances to buildings used to be, as well as, call out the names of buildings that are forever in my memory.

The Divine overcomes the dust and I am struck by the reality that God has made this a sacred place for many. Where women and men have left their homes, their jobs, their families, and everything that they once knew to be nurtured, challenged, and changed.

I remember the first time I walked up to the doors of the chapel, with a third year student, who was preparing to graduate that spring. As she walked and told me of her experiences at the seminary and how she had been married, a school teacher, and how all of that changed. "My marriage fell apart, and I was tired of grading papers. I knew God had more for me, but I would have to make the effort. That's when I found myself here. That's why any of us find our way here. It's what made Moses climb a mountain. Why Esther became queen. Why a virgin conceived and gave birth to the Son of God, and why you are standing here with me asking yourself, 'What does God want from me?'"

My shoes are off, and the sidewalk is cool to the touch. I walk closer, but stop. I have gone far enough. I look to the sky, just above the roofline of the chapel. The stars are numerous, and I remember the promise made to Abraham.

I take another step and a light breeze crosses the quad, and I can almost hear the great cloud of witnesses welcoming me back, and I think of the day that I will join my voice with them.

I turn to leave, and I kneel to place my shoes back on my feet. I suddenly see shadows dance among the buildings and the trees move in the breeze. I breathe in, and I am renewed. I am welcomed again.

This place IS holy. This place IS sacred.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018

For years I have heard this statement, "The will of God will never lead me to a place where God's grace won't sustain me."

I sat under this tree this morning with one of my hospice patients that is developmentally disabled. Over the past few months I have become her "friend."

Our visit always begins with me handing her a pack of Wrigleys Double Mint Gum. I've learned that to her this gum is "good." "I like it when you come. You bring me gum."

Today she noticed my mouth as we talked. "What happened to you?" she asked.

As I tried to explain what happened, she stopped me and said, "You know that God loves you so much more right now because you are weak. God loves us so much when we are weak."

An overwhelming urge to cry made me look to the sky. Instead I noted how the Spanish moss seems to wave at us in the breeze.

"It is okay to be weak. I am weak a lot," she shared.

"And God loves me a lot."

"Yes, God does," I responded.

God's incredible grace is not just sufficient. It overwhelms us while ushering in goodness and mercy.

We sat under this tree, silent. Just watching as squirrels chased one another and birds sang of the beautiful day. There are those moments in your life when you can't help but hear the faint echo of those original words, "It is good," being pronounced by the Creator. Those words are still present. They have never left us.

In our pursuit of other things we have lost the ability to hear them, and then, while sitting in the sun on a beautiful day, they seem to resound in a sacred moment.

Today the grace of God is more than sufficient. In weakness there is the reminder of God's powerful presence and that God loves each of us, especially when we are weak.

Stay in God's grip!

G. Todd Williams (c) 2018