light on Loss

Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When we wouldn’t love—You did. When we couldn’t do right—you could. When we wouldn’t give—You gave and gave all of yourself. So we come to You w...

John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...

John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...

God of the heavens and the earth, Giver of sun and showers, wind and calm: We praise You for Your grace and power, Your beauty, grace and care. You sustain us daily, and encourage us constantly. Than...

Word Study Ἐπιφάνεια: The Greek word from which the English transliterates Epiphany is a combination of a preposition and a verbal idea. Epi -upon and fainō -to shine, illuminate. An epiphany is li...

Preaching Commentary Word Study Ἐπιφάνεια: The Greek word from which the English transliterates Epiphany is a combination of a preposition and a verbal idea. Epi -upon and fainō -to shine, illumi...

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light fo...

Gracious God, we confess our sin to you, for we have denied your light in us; we have betrayed your Holy Spirit in us. For those sins which weigh upon us, and those we do not even know we ...

Holy and merciful God, in your presence we confess our sinfulness, our shortcomings, and our offenses against you. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from your ways, in wasting your ...

“This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the sam...

Put light against light - you have nothing. Put dark against dark - you have nothing. It's the contrast of light and dark that each give the other one meaning.

I am abashed, solitary, helpless, surrounded by a beauty that can never belong to me. But this sadness generates within me an unspeakable reverence for the holiness of created things, for they are pur...

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in...

Lord God, we know that you are life, the life which is the light of the world But sometimes we allow the darkness to close in We find ourselves driven apart from you We confess that we do not ...

Every life has death and every light has shadow. Be content to stand in the light and let the shadow fall where it will.

Psychologists tell us that one of the most difficult conditions a person can be forced to bear is light deprivation. Darkness, in fact, is often used in military captivity or penal institutions to bre...

Imagine you’ve just purchased a brand-new car—it’s no ordinary car, it’s a luxury vehicle, with the highest trim levels, equipped with all the latest technology. Among its many upgrades is a voice ale...

Dearest Father, we long for light, but dwell in darkness. We crave the warmth of the sun, but crawl into our caverns of sin and sadness. We are a people who prefer the misery and melancholy that we kn...

Darkness is not the opposite of light; it is the absence of light.

Leader: Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another. All: Gracious God, We confess the darkness and cold in our lives. Like barren trees in winter, we d...

God of forgiveness and mercy, hear our prayer as we confess our sin. With moments so critical we let time go by. With deliverance so near we linger in the darkness. With Christ as our armor, we yet fe...

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

Holy God, we have not lived in the light. We have not walked as Jesus did. We compromise all too often, living both for you and for ourselves. Your word calls us to account and your Holy Spirit convic...

Brothers and sisters, God does not leave us in our distress. He does not abandon us to our devilish decisions. While we choose to starve ourselves on a diet of our own making and choosing that leads t...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Pastor: In this season of Advent, we celebrate that Jesus has come, and that He promises to come again! When He comes, He will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the ...

One of the most dangerous driving situations is when it is raining at night. Not only are the streets slippery and visibility obscured by water on the windshield, but wet streets can reflect light fro...

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, b...

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark: the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.