Calvary ​United Methodist 

Church

​Thoughts for the Journey

We all know that 2025 was a year fraught with deep emotions. Often we look at the New Year with anticipation of being better than the last. The reality is that it will be in some ways. It will be more difficult and frustrating in other ways. It will present every day as a possibility and opportunity or one that we would work to forget. This is our human condition. Complex and messy. Determined and defeated. Hopeful and helpless. It is a beautiful broken life. That is why we need faith, God the Creator, Christ as the path and love as the power to bring everyone, including you and me to a place of breath, peace, and strength to meet every day in the light. This reading from Ann Weems
from Kneeling in Bethlehem has supported me through this season and my prayer is that it will carry us all into the New Year with embrace and not fear.

Working to live into the gift of Life,
Pastor Laurie

Gifts From God
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
God’s mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
The Lord God gave the peoples of the earth a garden,
and the people said, “That’s very nice, God, but that’s not enough.
We’d like a little knowledge, please.”
The Lord God gave them knowledge,
and the people said, “Now that we have knowledge,
we’d like things.”
The Lord God gave the people things,
but they always said, “That’s not quite enough.”
So the Lord God gave them gifts unequaled:
the sun
lightning and thunder
rain and flowers
animals and birds and fish
trees and stars and the moon.
God gave them the rainbow.
God parted the Red Sea and gave them manna.
God gave them prophets
and children
and each other,
but still the people said, “That’s not quite enough.”
God loved the people,
and out of ultimate merciful goodness God gave them the Gift of Gifts,
a Christmas present never to be forgotten.
God gave them love
in the form of God’s Son,
even Christ Jesus.
There are some that don’t open their eyes or their ears
or their hearts and they still say, that’s not quite enough.
They wander through the stores looking for Christ mas.
But others open their whole being to the Lord,
bending their knees to praise God,
carrying Christmas with them every day!
For these the whole world is a gift!