tired...

I think I slept about 3 hours last night, maybe 4. I woke over and over again.

So many things on my mind and heart. And dreams - always the dreams.

Friends in tough spaces. Grief. Anxiety. Fear.

My own weird pastor's kid day yesterday...

Mom had some health issues today - things that had the potential to be serious. She was home alone, which concerned me. Worked out okay - she managed to takes medication in time to stop the onslaught of the worse symptoms she's had in the past.

My baby brother is having surgery later this week to hopefully allow him to go back to playing guitar.

Went to a lecture tonight. My favorite prof from university, lecturing on the topics I loved. So good to use that part of my brain again.

Praying for sleep tonight. The dreamless, non-waking kind.

Praying for friends and family.

Praying for health and safety, for protection over the lives of many.

Have spent much of today making mental "smile lists" - needing to make choices for joy and thankfulness in the midst of some heavier things.

So in love with Jesus, and so confused with how wildly up and down that plays out in real life.

I'm going to bed. I need to sleep, and regain perspective.

See you tomorrow.

Ouch!

I promise a post full of my thoughts sometime later today... (or with at least some of my own thoughts!) However, in the meantime, given the odd churchy day I had yesterday, and the things I'm wrestling with, these two bits from Henri Nouwen (particularly the first one) stung a bit this morning...

Forgiving the Church

When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. When we say, "I love Jesus, but I hate the Church," we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too. The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.

It is important to think about the Church not as "over there" but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.

Our Spiritual Leaders

The Church as the body of Christ has many faces. The Church prays and worships. It speaks words of instruction and healing, cleanses us from our sins, invites us to the table of the Lord, binds us together in a covenant of love, sends us out to minister, anoints us when we are sick or dying, and accompanies us in our search for meaning and our daily need for support. All these faces might not come to us from those we look up to as our leaders. But when we live our lives with a simple trust that Jesus comes to us in our Church, we will see the Church's ministry in places and in faces where we least expect it.

If we truly love Jesus, Jesus will send us the people to give us what we most need. And they are our spiritual leaders.