"Come and see . . ." These may just be my favorite words in the Bible today. I say today, because maybe other words will hold that distinction tomorrow. For today, "Come and see" sends a breath of life into my heart. These words are an invitation to not know now. I am invited to … Continue reading Come and See: The Invitation of Imaginative Prayer
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it." --Brene Brown Do you ever stop to look at your life and ask, "How did I get here?" Sometimes, a small moment or conversation sets you on a course that changes everything. Sometimes these small moments require … Continue reading It All Started When I Owned My Doubt
""As we are, our hearts our closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks, and the words fall in." --Parker Palmer
Sometimes, people of faith like to refer to themselves or to others who hold the "right" kind of faith as believers. This descriptor seems inadequate. I don't feel comfortable or right when I try it on. But this story of faith grabs me. It could be my story. A sea of people stood between me … Continue reading A Desperate Faith
I wonder if the power of the Scripture's stories is not that they happened once upon a time, but that they happen. They have happened; they are happening; and they will happen. Like the story about Jesus taking the hand of the dead/sleeping girl and saying: "My child, get up!" Wake up. Wake up. Live … Continue reading On Waking
Sometimes it is easy to confuse faith with a set of beliefs. Sometimes people put their faith in their beliefs. Sometimes those beliefs are intertwined with faith to an extent that it is hard to separate the two.
I don’t think faith as a set of beliefs is the faith Jesus was talking about in Luke's stories.
Somehow, for me, the Questions were a door that ushered me into an experience of God that was real and beautiful and unexplainable--like nothing I had experienced before the Questions. The Questions were like keys springing open locks that had kept my mind from seeing what was real. Once opened, there was no turning back. There is no way to unsee. The Questions forced me to let go of Beliefs to which I had been clinging to like a life preserver. A set of Beliefs are not what save us or give us life. That Life is from God. Not from what I understand about God.
I am being invited to live the story that I am in, where I am at, right now.
Isn't that what life is? An invitation. An invitation to live with eyes, heart, arms, and hands wide open.
Jessica Sanborn 