AboutDebbie, bloghome, Lutheran Reflection, Lutheran Women in Mission

Appreciating This World

I just listened to Andrea Bocelli sing “Hallelujah” in Italian. I closed my eyes and let the music lift me beyond my own English language to the universal language of praise and adoration to our Lord and Savior. I thought of all the different languages of this world and how my understanding of these languages did not limit my appreciation for the sentiment borne within the words, especially when they are carried on the notes of music. I thought of how God reached across the barriers of language, race, and culture, and stretched out His arms on that cross for all people. As Andrea sang the words in Italian, I sang along in English and felt my song ascending as a prayer of praise to God.

We have all just celebrated Christmas. My family has special traditions and I’m sure your family does also. I enjoy learning about various culture’s traditions for celebrating their Christianity throughout the year. Do you have neighbors or friends come from a culture other than your own? Is there someone in your congregation who may consider sharing their history and traditions? When we lived in Bismarck, North Dakota, we always sang one verse of “Silent Night” in German. Wouldn’t it be fun to learn a favorite hymn in another language?

I don’t know where I’m going with this blog. Even as I ramble, I pray that God will open my mind and heart to appreciate how the Spirit works in the hearts of all His people, in different ways, but for the same purpose of glorifying Him. My prayer is that I may appreciate every culture, language, and person as His creation, love them with His love, and understand that my traditions are good but are not all encompassing.

For nothing will be impossible with God (Luke 1:37).

Today, and always, we are surrounded by HIS grace,
Debbie

AboutPatti, bloghome, Lutheran Reflection

Quotes from around my desk. Peace

Peace Note
Peace Note

Peace. I don’t have any statistics to back me up but I’m betting that “peace” is one of the most frequently used words in Christmas advertising and marketing. Think of all the wishes for peace that you receive in your Christmas cards.

This quote I have from someone and the Mary Engelbreit picture quote from Eleanor Roosevelt remind me that peace is not something that can be wished to someone and magically they will have it! Peace needs to be worked at. It is not a thing, but an ongoing process. This is most easily illustrated by the various peace processes in our world that succeed, then fail, then are worked out again. In our personal lives we may reach a time of peace only to have life experiences take it away and the process starts again.

I know that there are times when I don’t work for peace. It’s easier to be apathetic and leave the peace process to someone else whether that’s world peace or personal peace. I have to remind myself when I see this note that I need to be working towards peace daily—working at it!

There’s one type of peace that I don’t have to work at and that’s the peace of God that Jesus Christ came into the world to give us. That peace is a gift. Through His death and resurrection He secured the “peace that passes understanding”—eternal life with Him after we leave this conflicted, less-than-peaceful world.

LWML—Lutheran Women in Mission, know about that peace. We serve to spread the message of that peace. God has invited us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to share His peace to all the earth. In this peace with God we are enabled to engage with each other for peace on earth—so that what God provides may be known everywhere.

I pray for God’s peace for you and for the world this Christmas season. With that peace in your hearts, engage in the peace process in your families, congregations, communities and the world.

Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14).

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Patti

Lutheran Reflection

Traditions

Learn more about LWML here

 

Happy New Year! Our guest blogger this week is our LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor, Rev. Mitchel Schuessler. He and his wife, Penny, live in Troy, Illinois where he is pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church. 

 

I pray that your 2017 went well and 2018 will be a blessing to you. Me? 2017 saw me elected to the office of LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor. WOW! Never thought it would really happen but the Lord does amazing things.

Do you have a favorite tradition you do around Christmas/New Years? Penny and I do. We make raviolis on the day after Christmas. It is always an adventure that ends in a very tasty fashion. It is amazing how, even after doing this for years, we forget what we are doing. After the first set of raviolis come out of the press, we start to remember. “Oh yeah, that is what we do,” is often said. Fun times and good eats are a part of this Schuessler/Rex tradition.

What tradition do you have in your family? One tradition that I never had in my family was the LWML. As I look back, I wish that my mom would have been involved in the LWML but she was not. I did not grow up with the LWML but I did raise my family knowing and participating in the LWML in various ways.

Penny and I have been active throughout the past 35 years, which is hard to imagine. The day we brought our daughter Rachael home from the hospital, I took her over to the church at Trinity, Harvel, IL, to meet the ladies of the LWML society. From that point on, she has been a part of the LWML, a tradition we have handed down to her and to our son Matthew. We look forward to one day passing it on to the next generation.

Happy New Year and enjoy those traditions.

Rev. Mitchel Schuessler
LWML Junior Pastoral Counselor

Pastor Mitch and his wife Penny

Lutheran Reflection

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Learn more about LWML here 

 

Guest blogger this week is LWML Senior Pastoral Counselor, Rev. Robert Mundahl. He and his wife, Peggy, recently traveled to the Holy Land. My best wishes to all of you for a week of safe travel and joyful preparations for Christmas, family visits and Jesus’ birthday. – Patti

O little Town of Bethlehem is one of my favorite songs at Christmas, but after traveling to Israel last month my perspectives have changed. Bethlehem is no longer the little town of Jesus’ day. Instead of being a town of 300 to 1,000 people when He was born, Bethlehem has grown to envelop almost 76,000 people within its borders. It is quite easy to sit in Jerusalem and see Bethlehem in the distance. It reminds me of our spreading metropolises where every town simply runs into the next. The six miles Mary and Joseph journeyed to the Old City for Jesus’ purification is now filled in with walls, homes, and businesses. It’s hard to imagine that old little town anymore.

No matter the size of this town, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is considered to be the place where Jesus was born. Even though the Church is currently under renovation our tour group had the opportunity to enter down into the place set aside for His birth. Many paintings depict the cave like place understood to be where it all happened.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:11-12).

I’ll still sing the song with reverent joy as I celebrate His birth again this year. Bethlehem is the place. The Savior was born there. Jesus is still God’s gift to us. I was blessed to see and touch and mark the place where the Word became flesh.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks be to God – Joy to the World!
Rev. Robert Mundahl

Lutheran Women in Mission

Thanksgiving

Making friends with so many other women in the world is one of the great things about being active in LWML—Lutheran Women in Mission. I am so thankful for LWML and the friends I have made through it.
I would never expect that feeling overwhelmed I would tearfully call a woman in Oregon and pour out my anxieties. Nor would I have believed that I had a special friend in Phoenix who sends me gifts who I’ve only met once. I wouldn’t have thought I’d learn first-hand about dog-showing and breeding. Or connect with a friend of my dear Aunt Irene in California. The list could fill this page.

As we approach Thanksgiving my thoughts turn to people I am thankful to have in my life now and in the past. Not things—people. I’m sure as Christian women that is what most of us recall at Thanksgiving. That is why we go to the trouble of getting the family and friends together around the meal and the football games. It’s not always about the food, although that’s one of my favorite parts, but about the time set aside to catch up with family, meet that new baby in the family, and renew relationships.

Last week in the store the Thanksgiving items were already 50% off as Christmas items bulged from boxes waiting to be shelved. I know you all feel like I do that the Thanksgiving holiday, largely passed over, should be promoted as much as we promote Christmas. Our church has a Faith Friends group that meets Wednesday nights. It includes the kids from Kindergarten through 5th grade. Our LWML, working with our DCE intern during November, are doing three Wednesdays on thankfulness. The first Wednesday we did kits and tied quilts for Lutheran World Relief and talked about what we were thankful for. You might be interested that most of the kids mentioned people over things. The second week we skyped with a couple who are missionaries in Slovakia and the kids got to ask many questions. Then we did bookmarks and notes for the teachers and students to send over. Our third evening will be looking at thank you videos about the Lutheran World Relief kits and quilts from two groups of recipients. Then we are going to put together trail mixes and write a thank you for someone who normally doesn’t get much “thanks” for doing their job. It will be interesting to see where these will go.

I hope you have an opportunity to have a “people” Thanksgiving. I know you all will be thanking God for friends made in LWML because I’ve seen you all in action!
I’ll end this as my dad always ended our meals.

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever (Psalm 106:1 KJV).

Patti

Happy Thanksgiving