worldview and perspective on Wounds

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Trivia time! What natural disaster is the most destructive to a forest? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a forest fire. After all, fire is pure destruction to plants. What possib...

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

For he grew up before him like a young plant,     and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,     and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

There’s really no good reason to get your news from TV; doing so is more likely to turn you into a macadamized spectator than it is to equip you to be a healthy participant in the public sphere. Even ...

The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude toward religion, and Christians here face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about “10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Le...

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

Brenda Peterson is an author whose work crosses multiple genres, including fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. In an essay entitled In Praise of Skin, Peterson shares a true story from her own ...

No matter how much the world shatters us to pieces, we carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons us.

Your torture puts hostility to death Your broken body breaks down every dividing wall Your blood makes us blood What wondrous truth What dazzling grace Bring us near again, Jesus Help us remember an...

I believe that it is the paradox between serving a healing God and the persistence of illness and even death that ultimately lies behind most theological debates about divine healing in the Church. ...

I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.

“I’ve made myself vulnerable I’ve let myself care. I’ve opened my firmly closed heart. My safety is gone It’s no longer there My protection is falling apart. Nobody promised Our hearts would be safe O...

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story.

Leader: Blessed Lord Jesus, before your cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused you to be made a curse, the evil that provokes divine wrath. All: Show me the enormit...

There is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul. They heal, as well as mirror, the brokenness we find within. Moving apprehensively into the desert's emptiness, up the mo...

Father–nothing escapes your notice, is beyond your care or too hard for you to take on, whether it concerns nations or individuals. You have a heart for all the world–not just our little piece of it. ...

Karyn L. Freedman points out that one of the serious effects of trauma is “the shattered worldview.” After a traumatic experience, the survivor experiences cognitive dissonance as a whole new set of b...

So we learn early on that lack is embarrassing. Our pain is uncomfortable not just for ourselves but for those around us. Our need is obscene and offensive to a world that prides itself on its self-re...

God of love—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You loved us before we ever knew You. Give us such a deep love for You, that we can see the world as You see it, feel the compassion You feel, and be a people ...

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

Gracious God, for the goodness and beauty of creation we thank you. For the way your creation nurtures and inspires us, we are grateful. Yet, the more we pay attention to the world, the more we see i...

Gracious God, on Sundays we come to this place and you fill us up with your goodness and light and we are renewed. But when we go out into the world, we fall short in so many ways. We confess that we ...

Defilement is what sin does to us; damnation is what sin introduces as our eternal end. Except for God’s intervention. We have needs, and God addresses our needs. Even our sin, the most destructive re...

If we want the advantages of love, then we must be willing to take the risks of love. And that requires vulnerability. Of course, we can refuse this path and trod another one devoid of openness. But t...

Merciful and Holy God, We bow before You in heartfelt confession, acknowledging that we are a broken people, living in a broken world. This world is dark with the stain of sin. Your design for creatio...

I believe we all need to reframe our stories, at least parts of them, in order to heal, to discard lies, to move from partial truths to richer, fuller explanations, to see our lives as God sees them.