A Note from the Pastor
At the heart of my ruminations on covenant last Sunday was the idea that God brings everything to a committed relationship with us and expects nothing from us but gratitude, which is all we really have to bring since everything belongs to God already except our gratitude. It’s been particularly hard to be grateful during the past year, when we’ve had to deal with so many losses and limitations.
We’ve had more hard lessons about limitations during the past year than any of us probably thought we ever would, from relatively simple lessons about the limitations of wearing masks and keeping safe physical distance from others to big lessons about the limitations of our mortality. A series of hard lessons in my household came when Sheryl contracted COVID last April and was forced to retire from the job she’d held for nearly thirteen years, and we’re still learning.
But with hard lessons, the ones we’ve resisted, have come lessons we’ve welcomed, like the lesson from Claire I discovered on gratefulness.org. Woven into Claire’s long schooling in limitations, which began when she became profoundly deaf at age six, came wonderful insights into the gifts of possibility and opportunity that accompany limitations. She said, “I think the real gift of a handicap – I don’t know about a disease – is that you, you come to a place where you know you can’t do something. And if you hold on there, something emerges. There is always another way to go. Always.”
Claire shared a final bit of what she’s reaped from a lifetime of living with limitations. “If I was to give a piece of wisdom, I would say, be expectant. Expect something. Be curious. Be hopeful. And always be glad — for whatever comes to you. And for whatever you feel you can give, because you always can give something. And I think the more you give, the more is given to you.”
You can listen to all of what Claire had to say at:
Be grateful today. Be grateful every day.
—Pastor Rich
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