Sometimes what happens to you is not fair. It’s not fair that you got that diagnosis or that your mom isn’t here to show you the ropes or the insurance company refuses to cover that particular medicine you really need or you’re stuck between the impossible decision about whether or not to send your kid

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So it’s Saturday. WHO KNEW?! And Toban is using the power washer (classic mennonite stress-cleaning) and Zach is in a tree holding a bucket that, when last I checked, had a snake and a skink in it. Who he claims “are friends and knew each other already.” Great, great. Not entirely clear what garden snakes

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Fear is a terrible friend. Keeps us up at night. Seems to call at weird times. Doesn’t care if we are too busy or too sad. Prevents us from making any good decisions during the day. CONSTANTLY TALKS OVER US. What if? Have you heard? What about? Did you read this article? When we are

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blessed are we, the graced.we who don’t deserve it, whose failures haunt us, the things we said, the things we left unsaid, the decisions and addictions and broken relationships that have ripple effects we still feel today. somehow, we are the recipients of this mysterious gift. grace doesn’t erase the pain or harm we’ve caused,

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oh God, the thought of trying for a new and improved me just makes me tired. I am barely getting anywhere,so draw me closer to a different vision,one that sees that I don’t need perfection —I need love. I need freed from the expectation that life should always be better. the every day stressors—the bills,

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God, I feel it again, the burden of being human, and the fact that nothing will exempt us from the pain of it. wherever you go, you bear yourself, and always find yourself.– Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, transl. Leo Shirley-Price, 1952. blessed are we, Your human creatures,with mind and soul and spirit

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