Everyday Spirituality

Practicing Gratitude

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Ask any group of small children what they are thankful for, and you’ll likely get the same responses: my family, my friends, my pet, my home. You may get one or two kids who have interesting things to add, like my brother-in-law who once famously told his whole 3rd grade class that he was thankful for Kermit the Frog!  But for the most part, the answers will be pretty standard. It’s easy to be thankful for the good things in our lives.

But can we be thankful for things that are difficult?

Gratitude is more than just ticking off the checkboxes of good things in our lives. It can be a daily practice of looking for good in all things, especially those things which don’t appear to be that good on the surface. 

I work at a university, and when we returned from the pandemic lockdown, our campus post office stopped delivering mail to our offices every day, sticking to once a week. There were a lot of valid reasons for this decision, but it meant that on the other days, I had to walk across campus to pick up the mail myself.

Here was my initial reaction to this new situation:

This stinks! This is NOT in my job description. At my age I have to schlep all the way across campus and lug the mail back all by myself? This isn’t fair! What if the packages are heavy? I shouldn’t have to carry them!

After a few weeks, I realized that my grumpy attitude was not serving me, and was in fact seeping into other areas of my work. I had to figure out a way to be ok with this new situation. And I found the answer in the practice of gratitude. Each time I made a trip to the campus post office, I challenged myself to find something to be grateful for in the experience, and to write it down when I returned to my office. Here were some things that made it onto my list:

The pretty blossoms on the flowering trees
Running into a co-worker I hadn’t seen in a long time
The fresh air and warm gentle breezes
Getting to know the mailroom staff a little better each time I visited
The chance to stretch my legs after sitting at my desk for so long  

The list kept getting longer and longer and it changed my whole attitude toward this aspect of my job. Being grateful for things that are difficult doesn’t come naturally. But if you work at it, practicing a little bit each day, it will become an automatic response.

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, I challenge you to think of something that really bugs you. It can be something small and silly, or something bigger. Try to find some way to be grateful for that thing, and see how that act of gratitude changes your perspective in a way you might not have thought possible.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Keep Your Eyes Fixed on God

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Multitasking is a valuable skill.  It helps us in our jobs, in managing a household, and in taking care of loved ones. Being able to do many things at once keeps the wheels of life in motion. However, when it comes to negative emotions, multitasking has the opposite effect. Letting our thoughts bounce between worries, stressors, regrets, and pressures keeps us frozen in place. We find we are so overwhelmed by these emotions that we can’t move forward at all. The wheels will either get stuck in place or run off the road entirely.

So how can we avoid this kind of unhealthy mental multitasking? A fun example I’d like to share is playing Mario Kart with my sons. I should start by confessing that I’m pretty bad at video games. I was amazing at Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Frogger back in the 1980s, but my skills got pretty rusty after that. So I almost never win a race in Mario Kart. In fact, just staying on the track is usually all I can manage. 

These video games have a lot of sensory overload. Colorful animated tracks, a fun and lively musical soundtrack, and many characters crowding the track. And there’s a lot you can do on the way. You can pick up items and use them to sabotage other players or give yourself extra powers. You can take shortcuts. You can peek at the screens of the other players to see what they might be planning. Experience has taught me that if I try to do any of those extra tasks, I’m sure to crash, run off the road, or occasionally start driving in the wrong direction without even realizing it! For that reason, my strategy is simple – just drive. I keep my eyes fixed on the road and keep moving around the track, ignoring all the distractions along the way.

During times of stress or emotional overload, this is how I like to keep my eyes fixed on God. I ignore all the distractions around me and just try to focus on God’s presence before me. It doesn’t make the roadblocks or pitfalls go away, but it keeps me moving past them.

Author Steven Covey once wrote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” For me, the “main thing” is my belief in a loving God who guides my journey every step of the way. Keeping my eyes fixed on that has been my best defense against mental multitasking.

Keeping your eyes fixed on God requires faith—a belief that God has a plan for your life and is working in your life for good.  It requires prayer—a relationship with God that is active and alive. And it requires practice. Negative emotions are going to always be there to distract you and pull you further away from God, but with time and practice you can get better at not giving those emotions so much of your attention.

So the next time the race track in your mind is swirling with activity, remember to keep your eyes on the road and just drive.

Practicing Stillness

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“Be still and know that I am God”
Psalm 46:10

I love writing about stillness. On the surface it seems like a very simple practice, but in reality it can be difficult to achieve. Our world doesn’t make it easy to be still! Yet I believe it’s a critically worthwhile endeavor…for being still in the present moment is the best way to experience God.  

In a busy world and a sometimes chaotic society, roadblocks to stillness often come from the outside world. But just as often, they can come from within—through our own thoughts and habits. In my experience there are three ways that we tend to leave the present moment in our lives.

Focusing on doing instead of being

How often do you find yourself doing one thing, but your mind is spinning with other things you know you need to do? You might be eating lunch at your desk, but you’re not thinking about what your sandwich tastes like, instead you’re thinking about what you’re going to say at that meeting after lunch or the errands you need to run when you get home from work. Multitasking isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes it’s what we need to do. (If I’m being totally honest, I’m eating my lunch as I write this post!) But it’s important to realize that when we do this, we are taken out of the present moment.

Focusing on our worries about the future

When something is making you feel anxious, how much time do you spend running the scenarios? Thinking about everything that can go wrong and coming up with a plan for every possible outcome. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is incredibly common, and I know very few people who can resist doing this. It’s important to be aware of how often our minds dwell in the future and to recognize that when they do, we’re not here in the present.

Focusing on regrets of the past. 

It’s so easy to focus on things that we missed, things that we couldn’t do or lost out on. How much time do you spend thinking back on things that have already happened that you can’t do anything about? In this case I’m not talking about pleasant memories of the past, but rather regrets. Lost opportunities, harsh words, uncomfortable interactions. There are lots of ways to become lost in regret and every time we do, again, we aren’t really here.

All of these things have the same result of taking us out of the present moment. It’s the fastest way to get pulled off that path on our journey to spiritual wholeness. When we leave the present moment, we lose sight of God. We lose our sense of purpose. And we’re less able to focus on what’s really important.

In her book Mystical Hope, Cynthia Bourgeault writes: “The spiritual life can only be lived in the present moment, in the now. All the great religious traditions insist upon this simple but difficult truth. When we go rushing ahead into the future or shrinking back into the past, we miss the hand of God, which can only touch us in the now.”

The key to practicing stillness is to stay here with God in the present moment. Think of your mind as a busy airport. Your thoughts are like planes constantly taking off and landing. Backing up at the gates or circling the airspace waiting to land. Or maybe they’re like the crowded terminals jam-packed with worries and distractions. You need to take time on a regular basis to let those planes land. To empty out the terminals. To be still. When you let your mind settle, all past and future thoughts fade away, and you make room for God in the here and now.

May you find some time this week to experience stillness, where you can encounter the hand of God touching your life. Amen! 

Picking Crab Apples

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One day this fall, a student asked me for a spare paper bag so he could pick some crab apples from the tree outside my campus office building. I was puzzled by his request because I never knew crab apples were good for anything (besides dropping on the sidewalk and smushing up under my shoes!) The student surprised me by telling me he was going to use them to make jam.

He explained that the crab apple is just a smaller apple. No one thinks to eat them because we like things that are big and pretty. What a wonderful new insight! I thought the tree outside my building was just ornamental, only meant to be enjoyed for the pretty pink blossoms in the spring. I have since learned that crab apples can be eaten and have the exact same nutritional value as regular apples, just in a smaller package.

How can this old adage, “good things come in small packages” apply to our faith lives? What immediately comes to mind is the parable of the mustard seed:

“He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)

A podcast on Contemplative At Home calls this “a tiny parable about a tiny thing.” Jesus wants us to see that small beginnings can lead to powerful results. Things that start small can grow and spread. We often discount these tiny movements in our hearts, because we live in a world that celebrates everything that is big and bold and extravagant. It’s easy to feel that the way we express our faith is “not enough.” This parable reveals that the seed holds so much hope and possibility. Even the smallest amount of faith can be enough to set you off on your journey towards God. A journey that will blossom and grow, with branches that intertwine with those you encounter along the way.

Equally important as our small bits of faith are our small actions. My encounter with this student picking crab apples also reminded me of the famous quote by Mother Theresa: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” The world is filled with huge problems and inconceivable amounts of human suffering. It’s hard to believe anything we could do would actually make a difference. Where could we even begin? Well…we begin by doing something small. It may feel insignificant, or woefully inadequate. But the love that accompanies each small act will magnify and warm the hearts of whoever may be receiving the act of kindness. And that’s how it begins to spread. 

The Caterpillar and the Bear

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The story of the butterfly is a beautiful metaphor for spiritual transformation. The humble caterpillar spins itself a silky cocoon or chrysalis, undergoes metamorphosis, and emerges a glorious butterfly, taking flight and fulfilling its purpose taking nectar from flowers to pollinate plants. We think of the butterfly when we long for transformation or self improvement.

As inspiring as the butterfly story is…are there ever days when you wish you could go back into the cocoon? The butterfly has already experienced its miracle. There is no more transforming to be done. The work is finished. The excitement of the metamorphosis is over and you are left with a sense that the butterfly is “done” or “finished” growing. This thought leaves me feeling wistful and maybe a little bit sad.

Spiritual growth is not linear. We don’t move along a straight path our entire lives. We grow in spurts. We move forward. We retreat. We stall out. We leap forward. Sometimes we long to be the safe caterpillar resting deeply in its chrysalis. And other times we glory in floating like a butterfly.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to compare our spiritual lives to a hibernating bear. There are times throughout our lives that we need to turn inward. To rest, to contemplate, to remove ourselves from the busy outerworld. A bear knows it’s time to hibernate when it senses shortages in food and colder temperatures. If we know ourselves well enough, we can recognize our own signs that it’s time to hibernate. We are running low on energy or hope or even faith. Those are the times we need to draw inward. To let God nourish us and take care of us. Retreating is a critical step in the process of spiritual growth.

But there has never been a bear who stays in hibernation forever. They come out when the season calls for it, to fulfill their purpose as bears. Our own time of retreat can refresh us, restore us, and yes—even transform us. But the work is never really finished. A time will come again to rest and contemplate, followed by new spiritual awakenings each and every season. Our transformation may not come in a glorious burst of brightly-colored butterfly wings, but instead a slower and more gentle process.

This week I encourage you to look back over your seasons of hibernation and awakening. How do you feel when you emerge from a time of rest? What new insights did you learn about yourself? Are you good at recognizing when you need to draw inward and be held by a loving and miraculous God?

Created, Chosen, and Called

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Women of faith tend to put people on pedestals. Biblical figures and saints become images of idealized perfection, in a category all to their own – so high up, we could never reach them.  Even our contemporaries can be raised up to this status.

We compare ourselves to these individuals and come up short. Our acts of faith aren’t dramatic enough. Our pain isn’t severe enough. We’re always going to be “not enough”, because we aren’t seeing ourselves through the loving eyes of God. Our measuring stick always gets in the way. We create these categories in our minds. This group is special and worthy because of their acts of goodness or their noble suffering. They are set apart and I am not a part of that group. I don’t belong there.

It’s so important to see how this pedestal mentality—this super-sized admiration—affects our relationship with God. How it colors how we see ourselves in God’s plan and design. Or more accurately, where we see ourselves in God’s plan. 

Are there times we don’t see ourselves anywhere at all? 

The measuring stick comes out again. We measure the idealized perfection of these saintly figures against “whatever we are.” If you found your way to this blog post today, I want you to believe that you matter! That what you do matters. And the reason I can be so confident in saying this is because of what I call the three c’s.  

God CREATED you.
God CHOSE you.
God CALLED you.

God CREATED you:

The best way to make this shift in our thinking is to begin with pondering our own creation. God created us from the dust and breathed life into us. Genesis 2:7 says “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Isn’t that beautiful? Take a moment to picture the God of Love breathing Spirit into you at the moment of your creation. How could anyone feel small or ordinary or inadequate knowing that? 

We also know that God created us in His own image. Genesis 1:27 says “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  That is no small thing! Our very existence is an intimate act of union with our Creator.

God CHOSE you:

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” (Ephesians 1:4) God chose us. How beautiful! About 20 years ago I attended a retreat (and I’m sorry to say that I no longer remember the name of the speaker,) but she said something that hit me like a bolt of lightning because it had truly never occured to me: “God has a plan and a purpose for you. And He made you exactly the way He needs you to be.” I have never forgotten this quote and I try to incorporate it into almost every retreat I give, particularly to women and young girls.  

“God has a plan and a purpose for you. 
And He made you exactly the way He needs you to be.”

It all but destroys the measuring stick. God’s love doesn’t measure.  It doesn’t tally results or put us in a pecking order. God’s love has no conditions. The rules about who is loveable and who is not are erased. Our God does not compare, but instead offers us a love that is perfect and selfless. It isn’t something we receive only if we deserve it. It’s a gift freely given.

God CALLED you:

What are we being called to do? Who are we being called to be? These aren’t easy questions to answer! A good place to start is by recognizing your gifts. Remember: God made you exactly the way He needs you to be!

In my experience, most women are not good at recognizing our gifts. In fact, some of us could earn an Olympic medal in pointing out our own flaws. But when it comes to knowing what we’re good at…our tongues get tied. Our minds draw a blank. The measuring stick comes out again.  

And so I challenge you today to answer the question: What am I good at? I promise you it’s not arrogance or vanity to ponder this question. It’s a simple acknowledgment of how you’ve been gifted by God. You can express it with a sense of gratitude. If you’re really struggling answering this question, I would suggest that you ask someone you love to answer it.  What am I good at?  You might be surprised at what they tell you.

So the next time you think about the women you have put up on a pedestal, look in the mirror instead, and see yourself with the eyes of God. Repeat these words:

God created ME.
God chose ME.
God called ME.

Background photo by Vincentiu Solomon on Unsplash

God Never Changes

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Live every day like your favorite Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor might be discontinued.

This may sound like strange advice (and a guaranteed way to raise your cholesterol!) but I’m using it as a metaphor to talk about permanence…or more the lack of permanence in our world. 

In 2004 Ben & Jerry debuted Dublin Mudslide as a new, limited edition flavor. It became a fan favorite and was quickly promoted to a full-time flavor. I absolutely loved it! It was my number one dessert year round. For three blissful years, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this ice cream—until it was suddenly and without warning discontinued and sent to the B&J “Flavor Graveyard” in 2007. (I have since learned that there are over 30 flavors in the Flavor Graveyard. Perhaps your favorite was laid to rest there too?)

Before this becomes a foodie blog, let me get back to my metaphor. Not much is permanent in this life. We know this. Situations change. People come and go from our lives. The job you counted on gets eliminated. Your trusted doctor retires. The friend you thought you could rely on doesn’t show up for you. And yes, even your favorite ice cream flavor disappears. Nothing brought this lack of permanence into starker reality than the pandemic, which changed almost everything about the way we were living our lives. We couldn’t count on anything during those first frantic months of lockdowns! 

Focusing on the impermanence of life can lead to a lot of fear and anxiety. Not knowing when things might change leaves us feeling untethered to any sense of safety or security. So how can we move through our days free from this lingering fear? By remembering this:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
(Hebrews 13:8)

One thing we never have to worry about changing or disappearing is the unfailing faithfulness of God. We never need to doubt God’s love for us, God’s presence in our lives, or God’s plans for us. 

God was in the beginning. God is now. God will always be.

How does this knowledge affect how we respond to change in our lives and in the world? Knowing that God never changes gives us something to cling to. Something we can trust and depend on. God is the Rock of Ages. This stability…this rock-solid belief and certainty helps us move through times of change and loss without falling apart.

My story has a happy ending. A few months ago…fifteen years after being sent to the Flavor Graveyard, Dublin Mudslide is back! I’m enjoying it now with a new sense of appreciation. This delicious treat is part of my present now, and I’m going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts!

God At Work in Us

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Embrace the ways in which God is working in you

When looking for purpose in your life, time can feel like an enemy. Is it too late? Can God really be calling me to this new thing at my age? Have I missed my chance? Am I just too old to learn new spiritual tricks?

The answers to these questions are…NO!

People begin new things all the time. My husband didn’t start running until he was 40. He didn’t start playing basketball until a few years after that. I learned to crochet at the age of 51. One of my favorite social media follows—Babs Costello of “Brunch with Babs”—is a 72 year-old grandmother who is now a viral sensation with a best-selling cookbook. 

As we move through life and become entrenched in certain habits, it’s easy to feel that there is less and less room to grow in our spiritual lives. But it’s important to remember that God never stops working in us. We are a work in progress right up until our very last day here on this earth. If we can learn new hobbies or skills later in life, why can’t we learn new ways of praying, new spiritual practices, or new ways of connecting to our loving God?

Resist the temptation to remain stuck wherever you’ve landed in your faith life. Open your heart to God and embrace the ways in which God is working in you. Be willing to follow a path that you might not have imagined for yourself. 

Spiritual growth is the process of getting more in touch with your inner life, your relationship with God, and the workings of your heart. It’s a movement towards wholeness. Our spirituality is not static. It’s a constantly changing experience. It’s different through different stages of life and even from day to day.

How well do you know your own heart? Do you hide from it? Does it keep secrets from you? Do you resist what your heart is feeling, or where it is leading? Take some time to look inward. To examine all the intricate pathways of your heart and your life’s journey. Look for patterns. What can you learn from joyful times, from heartbreak, from confusion and doubt? All of these experiences lead to growth.

Remember, God created the universe and all that lives within it. In the words of William Reiser, S.J. in his book The Potter’s Touch:

“Creation is not yet finished because we are not yet finished. Our particular, individual creations are still taking place with God taking the creative and loving initiative in our souls.” 

Each day is an opportunity to experience ways in which we are being created by our loving God.

I’d love to hear from you! Share a story of how you embraced a new spiritual practice in your life.

Walking With God Through Pain

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Scenic photo with quote: God is powerful enough to carry us through our pain.

It has been scientifically proven that our brains are hard-wired to avoid pain. This has helped humans survive by recognizing threats and danger. But in a big and complex world, we can’t always avoid pain in our lives. Try as we might, we can’t always prevent pain in our bodies, such as illness, injury, or the natural process of aging. Unavoidable pain can also present itself in our minds—with anxiety, depression, and other mental health struggles. And our spirits can unexpectedly feel pain through broken relationships, heartbreak, setbacks and loss. When any type of pain enters our lives, our first instinct is to pray to our powerful and mighty God: Please take this pain away!

When the pain lingers, we feel confused and even a little betrayed. God can do all things… why am I still hurting? I’m honestly not sure I have a good answer to this question except to say that we live in a world of science and free will, and pain can sometimes be a part of that world. It’s why I believe that acceptance is such a big part of faith. Refusing to accept a painful time in our lives can lead to doubt, frustration, and a loss of trust in God. Dr. Julia King, a clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety, writes: “We create suffering for ourselves when we desperately wish things were different when, at least right now, they cannot be.”

So where can we find God amidst our pain? I firmly believe that God does not cause our pain or desire for us to suffer; however, God is powerful enough to carry us through our pain and even bring blessings out of it. So maybe instead of asking God to take away our suffering, we pray instead: God, please walk with me through this pain.

Imagine a parent confronted with a child in pain. The parent wants to do anything to make that child happy again. It hurts too much to see them suffering. But again, it’s not always possible. In the words of Brené Brown: “Our go-to as parents is to make everything better. We want to flip on the lights. But our job is to teach our kids that it is ok to be sad, and to sit in the dark with them.” That’s exactly what God does for us when we suffer—sits in the dark with us.

Even more, there’s a lot God can take away. The fear that accompanies pain. The loneliness. The despair. Leaning on God can take away the cascading effect of emotions that stem from pain. Our faith in God leads to hope that physical pain may heal or lessen. Mental pain does not have to define our lives. And emotional pain does not need to overwhelm us.

To expect to live a life without any pain is like building a castle on sand. The minute something goes wrong, we assume we just can’t handle it. We collapse with no foundation to hold us together. But when we approach the painful moments of life with Jesus by our side, we are stronger. We have our faith to lean on. We have trust that joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Through times of suffering, we learn a lot. We learn about God’s love for us. We learn how to trust. We learn about our own strength and resilience. We learn compassion for others who have suffered. God is there with us through all of that…showing us the way through.

I’d love to hear your comments! Respond with your thoughts on how God has carried you through times of pain. How did that experience differ from times you tried to go it alone?

Encountering God in Each Moment

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Each and every moment that we live is an opportunity to encounter God. An average lifetime is 41 million minutes. That’s a lot of moments! Sometimes it’s easy to see how God appears to us. Something so special or different is happening that we can’t help but be aware of the awesome presence of God in that moment. The Joyful Moment, when we are celebrating with loved ones. The Awe-Filled Moment, when we witness the breathtaking the glory of God in nature. Or the Tranquil Moment, when we feel God speaking to us deep in prayer.

But in a life filled with over a million moments, many of them are not going to be joyful, tranquil, or filled with awe. Life is made up of lots of other kinds of moments that don’t exactly sparkle with Divine presence. The Frazzled Moment, the Dull Moment, the Anxious Moment. All too often God “seems” absent in these moments. 

Why is it that we tend to miss God’s presence in these more ordinary occurrences?  

Sometimes our emotions grab hold of us and we just react to what’s happening, believing that we’re on our own and we must control the situation. Other times we feel that what we’re experiencing isn’t “big” enough or important enough for God’s attention.  We feel our ordinary moments are not worthy of God’s attention. And oftentimes, sharing our moments with God just doesn’t occur to us. Like anything, being mindful of God’s presence in our lives is something we have to practice. And it’s easy to forget or fall out of the habit.

It’s important to realize that God is always here with us whether we notice or not! There is not a fraction of a minute we experience in our lives that God is not there to witness. The key is to be aware of it. How can we increase the number of moments in which we encounter God?

AWARENESS

This is where it begins. Let yourself “feel” the presence of God in whatever way calls to you. Remind yourself that God is there. Repeat to yourself: God is here with me in this moment. Take time to notice where God may be coming through. If you are sitting through a boring meeting at work (a Dull Moment to be sure!) take time to realize that each person at that meeting is a child of God. God abides in everyone there.

CONVERSATIONAL PRAYER

Talk to God in the moment you are having. An easy conversation like one you would have with a friend. This does not come naturally for many people, but it gets easier with practice. No matter what kind of moment you’re experiencing, talk to God about it. When you’re experiencing an Anxious Moment, talk through your feelings with God. Bring your worries to God and set them down. 

GRATITUDE

Before the moment fades away, take time to thank God for being there with you through it. After all, moments come and go, but God’s presence is unending. When you get through a Frazzled Moment of trying to do a million things at once, thank God for getting through it, knowing that a sense of relief and calm will come at the end.

How does this make your life better? In one simple way…through the realization that you are never alone. That each moment—no matter how ordinary—is sparkling with Holy light, soothing with Heavenly love, or lifting you up with Divine hope. Our loving Creator is the source of each and every moment.

Photo by John Peters on Unsplash