As I approached a stop light a few weeks ago, I pulled behind a big truck. I couldn’t help but notice the large, neon-green sticker in the back window that said, “Ask me if I give a @*%&”. Ironically, I wasn’t even offended by the language (guess that’s another blog), but it deeply saddened me that this person felt so little care for anything that they had purchased a sticker proclaiming it.

Who was this person that had so little passion or concern for anything? How were they so disheartened or angry with the world that they went out in the community advertising it? Have you ever felt this way? Maybe not to the degree of advertising but others could feel this coming from you, or you put on a happy exterior but apathy is what you were feeling inside?

In the current climate of the world, I do understand that it might be a natural reaction to put your blinders on because confronting the future or comprehending the magnitude of wars, wildfires, the anger that seems to be all around us, family or mental health issues, or the state of our country is too much to bear. Looking into the future feels hopeless and discouraging. There is no joy or pleasure, only pain and difficulty. It’s just easier not to care.

As Christians, there is always good news; we have reason to hope. Paul writes in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Our God is a God of hope which means those who trust Christ always have reason to hope. The Holy Spirit is working to change our hearts and minds. It may not be overnight, but God will guide us on the journey.

My hope is that the person in the truck gets to experience something that brings him hope or his heart is softened (I imagine Grinch style) by seeing that there is so much good in the world. Maybe he will encounter one of our youth that was on our Jr. High retreat who ooze silliness and kindness. They can’t help but make you smile. Or cross paths with one of the hundreds of enthusiastic youth leaders who recently attended our ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) Conference. Their light and energy are infectious.

As Christians and with the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the tools to flip the narrative from apathy and anger to hope. Ann Lamont writes about her friend Father Tom Weston, who reassures people who come to him in despair, with these words, “We do what’s possible. We are kind to ourselves. We take care of the poor. We feed hungry kids. We pick up litter.” Our gestures may not be grand, but they will bear fruit and continue to spread.

Please pray with me for the person in that truck and for all those who may be feeling this anger and despair. May they know hope and find peace.

Serving and hoping with you,
Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation

It’s not easy being green. We’ve heard these words through several generations now from Kermit the Frog or one of the many artists who have covered the song since it aired on Sesame Street in 1970. If you listen to it like you’re five years old, it just sounds like Kermit is complaining about being a boring color that blends in with leaves and grass. He wants to be a brighter color, or maybe something sparkly or flashy so he stands out.

With adult eyes and ears, we can take a deeper dive into the lyrics and understand that Kermit felt different from everyone else. He was passed by because his color made him seem unimportant. He didn’t just feel like he was boring - he had been treated poorly by people because he was green.

As someone who has spent my whole life feeling green in one way or another, I’ve always related to Kermit (especially that he wishes he could be sparkly). More often than not, though, I hoped I would blend in and go unnoticed rather than suffer the consequences of being recognized as different. When you are green, It is impossible to know when you walk down the street or into a room full of strangers who might have a reaction to who you are - not just a negative reaction, but potentially a violent one. There were times I thought the world was getting better about this, but the pockets of hate about all kinds of green are still big and loud.

I wish I knew what the answer was. In part, I think it is important to acknowledge that all kinds of hate are still affecting people’s lives. People are being targeted because of their race, gender, sexuality, social status, religion … and they are being targeted both religiously and politically.

During our season of Epiphany, we decorate our church in green as a symbol of growing. We hear of Jesus’ first miracles, which he performs without bias, despite what the church leaders and government would want him to do. Jesus gives us this example so that we, as his followers, will also look beyond the preconceived biases we might have to share his love in the world.

By the end of the song, Kermit realizes that green is also the color of spring, and it can be big like an ocean or important like a mountain. Once he took some time to reflect on what it really meant, he found that he had been tainted by his prejudices.

“I'm green and it'll do fine
It's beautiful, and I think it's what I want to be”

John Johns

During my senior year at Luther College, I took a class where we read personal stories from those who were incarcerated. Reading about their experiences of being in prison gave me a new perspective about their individual stories rather than generalizing them based on what they did. 

I have been thinking about that class a lot lately after finishing a memoir last week called The House of My Mother by Shari Franke. I was left in awe of the author's vulnerability in sharing some of the most difficult and dark times of her life.  

In the last few years, I have become more comfortable with sharing parts of my story that are more difficult to share, especially my parents divorce and the difficult relationship I have with some of my family members. By no means is it easy, but it has made me grow closer to some important people in my life and to God.

Brené Brown, in her book Rising Strong: The Reckoning, says, “The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness—even our wholeheartedness—actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls.” 

What I love about this quote is that it is a reminder to us about the value of even the most difficult parts of our story. As followers of Jesus, we also have the reassurance that no matter what we do, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This scripture is reassuring because we know that in all parts of your story, God never leaves you.

Are there ways that you can share your story with others, even the most difficult parts? Are there ways that you have seen God working even in the most difficult parts of your story?  

Always sharing,
Pastor Nicole

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” –Matthew 11:28-30

My life was always busy growing up. Nights that my family wasn’t running off to one place or another were few and far between. I like to be busy. I like to feel important. I like to work hard. This past year has really challenged me to reflect on why I like the busyness.

To be candid, 2024 was a hard year for me. It was beautiful and amazing—I got married and moved to a new city. But it was also the year I quit my dream job, moved away from my family, moved away from my friends, left a church that I had finally started feeling at home in, and started a brand new life in a place where I knew no one.

Not only was my entire life up in the air, but I was also beginning to feel burned out from a life of constant go-go-go. I was working 10-hour days more often than I should have been, planning a wedding, maintaining friendships, and raising a puppy. I was living my life at what seemed like 90 miles an hour. The pace felt fine enough—I was doing okay. I was getting things done and achieving what I thought I wanted, but I was growing farther from relationship with God. How?? I was working in ministry! I thought I had found the fast-track to holy perfection! Okay... I wasn’t quite that naive, but you get the idea.

I had been romanticizing the idea of a “busy” life. If you asked me how my day was or how things were going before 2024, odds are that I would have answered, “Oh, you know, busy!” Saying things were busy gave me an opportunity to avoid real conversations about how things really were without bending the truth because it was true: My life was busy!

But in all of the busyness, I realized time in prayer and time spent in the Word and time dwelling with God had fallen pretty low on my list of priorities. I realized that busy was not how I wanted people to see Christ through me. I wanted them to see loving, kind, peaceful, and joyful.

In one of his books, Pastor John Ortberg said, “For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”

One of my favorite books that I read in 2024 was The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. In this book, one of the practical tips he gives is to physically slow yourself down in order to practice rest and presence. Some of his suggestions are to drive at the speed limit, get into the slow lane in traffic, pick the longest checkout line at the grocery store, show up early to an appointment without using your phone while you wait, stop trying to multitask, etc. Throughout 2024, I tried to do some of these on a regular basis and discovered that, actually, I don’t want to be in such a hurry all the time. And I realized that doing some of these things allowed me to better love my neighbors. If I am not in a rush at the checkout line, I can let a stranger who seems anxious to get to their next stop go ahead of me. If I am not in a hurry when I drive places, I find I have more peace and patience and can even pray for those driving past me at fast speeds. Love takes time, and hurry convinces you that you don’t have time.

Is hurrying preventing you from loving others well?
How will you challenge yourself to slow down and practice presence with God in 2025?

Working on slowing down,
Maddie Pease

As the Lord of Life staff knows, I sometimes struggle with writing the blog. Writing does not come naturally to me and the grammar rules can be fuzzy. However, I have come to find peace in the quiet of the early morning when I tend to start my blogging journey. An early alarm, a cup of coffee, a blanket, my laptop, sometimes various books, and opening the shades so I can watch the sun rise are part of the process. This month, there was the added serenity of the Christmas tree and lights.

Since blogging is a process, I tend to start with an idea and several times abandon it for another. I was blessed this morning with finding a blog I had started a few years ago as it brought memories flooding back. It hit home with the mixed emotions that I have been feeling this Advent season. I’ve been missing my mom who died during this season along with feeling the weight of other losses and the sadness of events going on in the world, so my heart has been heavy. But then there is the profound joy and hope when we celebrate and join together at Advent dinners, at the Instant Christmas program, and as a community of faith during this season of anticipation for the light of Jesus that is to come.

These are the beginnings of my blog three years ago… “I started the third Sunday of Advent just as it was meant to be, a week of joy. It was going to be a great day. I had a morning full of LOL church lovin’ (can you hear Pastor Lowell saying that?), the Christmas program, lunch with dear friends, and senior high night with LOL and VEIL youth. My only worries were how much pizza I should order, and did I get enough Christmas tree treats for the program? Oh, and the sun was shining!

I got the call right after my lunch. My mom and stepdad, Lou, had both fallen and were being taken to West Chester ER. Bam! How quickly the day turned. They thought the injuries weren’t too serious, but this was a new complication since my stepdad was in the process of learning to care for mom after her major back surgery. Now he looked like the guy who lost the prize fight and needed care too.

How are we going to work through this? Who was going to care for my mom now? So much to figure out. But as God does, moments of joy were placed between the worry and fear. When the Chaplain at the hospital came to visit my mom, she said, “You need to go to Lou”, and when she went to visit Lou, he sent her right back to mom. We all drew comfort from their love and care for each other. Mom and I had those big down times of waiting in the ER where we laughed at memories from childhood and mused at the amazingness of nurses and care staff.”

What a gift to remember my mom today as she always was, the eternal optimist with an ability to share joy with others even in her pain. She was also an amazing writer with her masters in English who could whip out a poem or heartfelt letter in a flash. I guess this talent skips a generation! But don’t feel bad for me as she also instilled in her children the ability to laugh at ourselves and appreciate what other gifts God had given us.

When we know the fullness of joy, we are also opening ourselves to experience sadness, frustration, and loss. Life is truly a balance of emotions.

How comforting to know that God sent Jesus to experience the fullness of humankind, which encompasses the entirety of emotions. When we are willing to open our lives and hearts to live freely among God’s people in this Advent season and beyond, there will be sorrow but there will also be great joy.

What emotions are you feeling today? Can you see the joys that, many times, mix in with the sorrows? Can you find hope as we rejoice in the birth of Jesus that brings love and light to a weary world?

Sharing the season of hope, love, joy and peace with you,
Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation

We hear a lot of words and phrases around Advent like “stillness,” “quiet,” “making room in our hearts,” “preparing the way …” The idea of Advent is that we take this time before Christmas to ready ourselves for Jesus' birth. Officially, it is a season of fasting* just like Lent is the season of fasting before we celebrate Easter. 

But that isn’t how our weeks leading up to Christmas usually work for us, is it? We rush to finish projects for our jobs before end-of-year reporting; we cram social engagements into our calendars, often to the point they overlap; we stress about finding and buying gifts, traveling, or hosting for Christmas, and maybe about the finances attached to all of that. It's hard to imagine making any time or quiet or room or preparing for Jesus at all. It feels more like chaos than peace.

You may have figured this out about me - I thrive in chaos. For a long time, that was a source of stress for me - not because the chaos bothered me, but because I was worried about what other people thought about it. Isn’t that a source of a lot of our stress this time of year? What is everyone going to think about my work when the score is settled on December 31? Will everyone like the gifts I’m buying? Who is going to be disappointed in our travel plans? Or the food we cooked? Or our Christmas decorations? Or how clean our house is? We’re worried about how other people are going to judge our chaos, or at least, the way we have dealt with our chaos. 

For me, as someone who knits energy out of that chaotic skein, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was focusing on the wrong thing. Once I realized that the chaos wasn’t the problem and that my fears of failure were, it allowed me the joy I get when I accomplish things. Philosopher Frederich Nietzsche said, “You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” We need that sense of play - of trying things out, whether they are going to work or not - to create something new. And then once we’ve tried something, we look at what works and what doesn’t, and we learn and grow from it.

What if we take that sense of playfulness through Advent with us? We are going to be presented with chaos whether we like it or not, so why not have fun with it? Let go of the fear and if plans don’t work out, learn from what you did and try something different next time. This is another way of being mindful in a season when it is really difficult to make time for quiet.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Pablo Picasso: “God is really another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.”

What kind of chaos are you going to play with this Christmas season?

 John Johns, Music Director

*if anyone is interested, ask me about why Advent isn’t really the fasting season before Christmas but before another feast day … it is worth a whole other blog post.