Living the Present, Learning from the Past

July 8, 2025
 
Beloved:
          In this past Sunday’s sermon, I read a good portion of the sermon found at the following link, composed and preached by Reverend Juan Garcia.  I share his concerns about the very present threat to our own religious liberty and the human rights of our neighbors these days, which is why I relayed his sermon on Sunday and here.  I welcome your feedback.
https://cbf.net/outgoing-cbf-moderator-calls-cooperative-baptists-to-faithful-dissent-in-address-to-general-assembly/.
          In other news, the baby grandson sneezed in my face and gave me his snotty summer cold.  The only time he slows down is when we get him in a headlock to wipe his goopy nose, while all I want to do is go lay my achy head on a cool pillowcase.  Good thing I like him.
          Isn’t it so hard to slow down, to behave as if the world might suffer hardship if we take a nap when we have a headache?  Were we really meant - designed - to work this hard, to stay this busy all the time?  Even when we are sick … if only a little bit sick … sick enough to fantasize about taking a teeny tiny nap before lunch time.  (My grandson is probably down for his first nap, and he’ll probably get better faster than I do!)
          Maybe it’s my mother’s voice I hear echoing in my head, the one that said unless I had a fever I had to go to school.  My sister didn’t miss a day of school until she got strep throat in junior high.  She had chicken pox over Christmas break!  I still hardly ever get a fever.  I broke my leg but didn’t miss a Sunday preaching.  She and my dad were teaching me to work hard, my mother, and I’m grateful to her for that every day.  But I also wish she would have given herself a break sometimes, let herself have a day off from three babies born inside thirty months.  Before disposable diapers and central air conditioning were things!  I have no childhood memory of ever seeing her sick, ever knowing her to take a nap.  She was a good mother who did not intend to teach me that mothers don’t get sick or tired.  Yet I breathed in that lesson and struggle now to breathe it out, to let it go in favor of more gentle ones like

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 
He makes me lie down in green pastures; 
he leads me beside still waters; 
he restores my soul. ~ Psalm 23:1-3

          Birdy the golden girl is asleep at my feet as I type, three hours into the fifteen she sleeps out of every 24.  Not unlike a ten-month-old grandbaby.  Both live close to their own bodily design, offering us a lesson we might choose, should we have the courage to leave laundry unfolded and emails unanswered . . . to rest even when the sun shines.
          The air is joyfully mild today, so I hope we all get a little time outdoors.  Much love from my house to yours.
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~peace & prayers,
pastor annette